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Steak and Onions Fried

A fried steak served with sautéed onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steak and Onions Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onions into rings and soak them in cold water for 1 hour to reduce their strong flavor.

Fry the steak and onions

  1. Heat the suet or dripping in a large frying pan.

  2. Add the steak, which should be ½ inch thick, and fry on moderate heat.

  3. Turn the steak often and cook for about 8 minutes until firm to the touch.

  4. Drain the onions and add them to the pan, cooking until they are soft.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + ketchuptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Its protein firms and browns in the hot fat, forming the main body of the dish.
Suet or dripping
Provides the frying fat that conducts heat evenly and browns the steak and onions.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding mellow flavor that balances the meat.

The step that matters

Drain the onions before adding them to the pan. Water clinging to the soaked onions turns to steam in hot fat and causes spattering. Draining them well lets the onions fry and soften instead of steaming.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ketchup, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, flour, pepper. 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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