Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Steak, Crumbed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the steak into thin slices.
Prepare a seasoning with salt, black pepper, cayenne, and hot sauce.
Coat the meat with the seasoning.
Coat
Dip each piece into melted butter or dripping, then dust with flour.
Roll each piece in bread crumbs.
Let them rest briefly, then dip again in butter and coat with crumbs.
Fry
Fry the pieces in hot fat until golden brown.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,078 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and flour 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
- Steak
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked tender in thin slices.
- Butter or dripping
- Carries the flour and crumbs and helps the coating brown when fried.
- Flour
- Gives the first dry layer that the crumbs stick to.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried.
The step that matters
Double coating and frying in hot fat. The second dip and crumb coat builds a thicker crust, and the fat must be hot so the crumbs crisp and brown rather than absorb grease and turn soggy.
“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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