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Steaks and Cutlets

Pan‑fried steaks or cutlets served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steaks and Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the steaks or cutlets with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Dredge both sides lightly with flour.

Cook the steaks

  1. Heat a pan and place the steaks in it, moving and turning them often to cook evenly.

  2. Fry for 10 to 15 minutes until done.

  3. Transfer the cooked steaks to a dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour off the fat from the pan and add a small slice of butter.

  2. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour and brown it gently.

  3. Gradually pour in ¼ pint of hot broth or water, shaking the pan well.

  4. Add more pepper, salt, and catsup or your preferred sauce, then pour the gravy over the steaks.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Steaks or cutlets
The main protein, which browns in the pan and cooks through over direct heat.
Flour
Coats the meat for a light crust and, once browned in fat, thickens the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour and helps the flour brown in the pan.
Broth or water
Forms the liquid of the gravy, which the flour starch thickens as it heats.
Catsup or preferred sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity to season the gravy.

The step that matters

Gradually pouring in the hot broth while shaking the pan. Adding liquid slowly while stirring or shaking spreads the flour evenly so it does not form lumps. Heated flour starch swells and thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy.

“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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