Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Beefsteak, Fried
Ingredients
Directions
Heat enough butter or fat in a frying pan to barely cover the bottom.
Add the steak and fry one side quickly.
Turn the steak and fry the other side until browned.
Once browned, cook a little more slowly, turning the steak repeatedly to avoid burning the fat.
Serve with a little butter spread on top or with gravy.
To make gravy, drain off the fat, add boiling water to the sediment, season with salt and pepper, boil, skim, strain, and serve.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rump steak
- Is the main protein, cooked by quick frying to brown the outside while keeping the inside tender.
- Butter or frying fat
- Conducts heat in the pan and browns the steak surface, and its sediment forms the base of the gravy.
The step that matters
Cooking the steak after browning. Once the steak is browned, the heat should be reduced and the steak turned often, because the fat and sediment in the pan can burn and turn bitter, spoiling both the steak and the gravy made from the sediment.
“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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