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To Fry Beef-steaks

Fried beef steaks served with a ketchup-flour gravy and optional sautéed onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Fry Beef-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steaks

  1. Cut the steaks as for broiling.

  2. In a pan, shift and turn the steaks frequently until browned all over.

  3. Place the finished steaks in a hot dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour a little hot water into the pan after removing the steaks, and discard the fat.

  2. Add pepper, coarse sea salt, ketchup, and flour to the hot water to make gravy.

  3. Pour the gravy over the steaks in the dish.

Finish and serve

  1. If desired, slice the onions thinly and fry them in some of the remaining fat until soft.

  2. Serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Provide the main protein, which browns in the pan to build savory flavour.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a gravy that clings to the steaks.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, deepening its flavour.
Onions
Soften in the leftover fat, adding sweetness and a mellow savoury note.

The step that matters

Browning the steaks. Turning them frequently until browned all over develops flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding or overcooking the pan can steam the meat instead of searing it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, ketchup, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, ketchup, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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