Why it works: Currant and red currant share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 57 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Beefsteaks, Naples Fashion
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the steaks
Trim and cut the beef into steaks, then beat them slightly and season with salt.
Place the steaks in a bowl and pour the cooked marinade over them. Let them marinate for 2 hours.
Drain the steaks, wipe them dry, and heat melted butter in a sauté pan.
Cook and make the sauce
Fry the steaks in the sauté pan on both sides until cooked to your liking.
Remove the cooked steaks from the pan and drain excess fat.
Pour part of the marinade stock into the sauté pan, bring to a boil, and thicken with brown sauce and red currant jelly.
Finish and serve
In a small saucepan, blanch the currants in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain.
Mix the blanched currants with the roasted pine nuts or shredded almonds.
Pour the sauce over the currants, let it boil, then serve the beefsteaks topped with the sauce.
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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Currant + red curranttop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together57 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Butter + pinetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together358 recipes
Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
- Beef steaks
- Main protein; beating and marinating tenderise the meat and the marinade adds flavour.
- Red currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and a glossy body to the sauce, balancing its savoury flavour.
- Brown sauce
- Thickens the pan sauce and adds savoury depth.
- Dried currants
- Plump with blanching and add sweetness and chewy texture to the topping.
- Pine nuts or almonds
- Add crunch and a toasted, nutty aroma against the soft steaks.
The step that matters
Frying the steaks to the desired doneness. Beef left on high heat too long toughens as its proteins tighten, while a short sear on a hot, dry surface browns it well and keeps it juicy inside. Drying the steaks first helps them brown rather than steam.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pine, sauce, red currant):
- Lemonfits better
- Cherryfits better
- Limefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pine, sauce, red currant. 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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