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Beefsteak Sauce

A sauce made from mustard, Worcester sauce, ghee, cayenne pepper, and sherry, used in beefsteak gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the French mustard, Worcester sauce, ghee, and cayenne pepper in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer over low heat until it comes to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the sherry.

Bottle and use

  1. Bottle the sauce and use one tablespoon in beefsteak gravy.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sherry + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  4. Mustard + sherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sauce + sherrytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,097 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

French mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that cuts through the richness of the beef.
Worcester sauce
Provides savoury, salty depth and umami as the main flavour base.
Sherry
Adds a light, fruity acidity and aroma that brightens the sauce.
Ghee
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cayenne pepper
Adds heat that gives the sauce a sharp, lingering kick.

The step that matters

Adding the sherry off the heat. Sherry is volatile and delicate, so stirring it in after removing the pan from the heat preserves its aroma and fresh acidity. Boiling it would drive off much of the aroma and mellow the sauce's brightness.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, sherry, ghee, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, sherry, ghee, 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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