Skip to main content
Main

Steaks and Cutlets

A dish of seasoned steaks or cutlets served with a buttery gravy flavored with flour, broth, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 and make the gravy

  1. Fry in a hot pan for 10 to 15 minutes, turning often to prevent sticking or burning.

  2. Transfer to a hot dish when done.

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

  4. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour and brown it gently.

  5. Gradually pour in ½ cup of hot broth or water, shaking the pan well.

  6. Add more pepper, salt, and catsup or 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

Flour
Coats the steaks for a light crust and thickens the gravy when browned in the fat.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the gravy base left in the pan.
Broth or water
Dissolves the browned flour and fat to form a smooth, pourable gravy.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and browning it gently. Flour cooked in fat must brown slowly to lose its raw taste and to thicken evenly. Too much heat can scorch it, and adding liquid too fast can cause lumps, so pour the broth gradually while shaking the pan.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes