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Steaks and Cutlets

Pan‑fried steaks or cutlets served with a brown gravy made from butter, flour, broth, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 the steaks

  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.

  2. Place the steaks in the pan, moving and turning them often for even cooking.

  3. Fry for 10 to 15 minutes until done.

  4. Transfer the cooked steaks to a hot dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour off the fat from the pan.

  2. Add a small slice of butter to the pan.

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

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

  5. Add more black pepper, salt, and a little catsup or preferred sauce.

  6. 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
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy and helps the coating brown.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy and helps the flour brown gently.
Steaks or cutlets
Main protein, cooked in the pan until done.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the fat. Cooking the flour gently in the fat until lightly browned removes its raw taste and builds color and flavor. Adding liquid too soon or too fast can leave lumps, so pour the broth in 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.

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