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Robart Sauce for Steaks

A buttery onion sauce with gravy, mustard, vinegar, and lemon, served over steaks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Robart Sauce for Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. In a saucepan or frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the shredded onions and fry until brown, being careful not to burn them.

  3. Stir in the flour and fry for another minute.

  4. Season with pepper and salt, then add the gravy and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Skim off the fat, then add the mustard, vinegar, and lemon juice.

  6. Bring to a boil and pour around 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Carries the onions and gives the sauce a rich, fatty base.
Onions
Browning them adds sweetness and a deeper savoury flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and gravy.
Gravy
Provides the main liquid and meaty flavour of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the richness of the gravy and butter.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that lifts the flavours.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until brown without burning. Browning builds sweet, deep flavour through the Maillard reaction, but scorched onions turn bitter and spoil the whole sauce, so keep the heat moderate and watch closely.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, flour, pepper, mustard, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Mangofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, flour, pepper, mustard, vinegar. 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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