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To Fry Beefsteaks

A pan‑fried beefsteak served with a ketchup and water gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

To Fry Beefsteaks

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steaks

  1. Cut the steaks as for broiling.

  2. Heat the butter or dripping in a pan.

  3. Add the steaks and turn them frequently until browned all over.

  4. Place the finished steaks in a hot dish.

Make the gravy

  1. Pour away the fat, then add water, pepper, salt, and ketchup to the pan.

  2. Let the mixture boil and pour the gravy over the steak.

  3. If using onions, slice them thin and fry in the remaining fat until soft after cooking the steak.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Ketchup + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Ketchup + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,784 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

Beefsteak
Main protein; browning on the outside while staying tender inside when turned often.
Butter or dripping
Fat for frying that browns the steak surface and carries flavour into the pan.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the pan gravy, rounding out its flavour.

The step that matters

Turning the steaks frequently. Frequent turning in hot fat browns both sides evenly and keeps the surface from scorching before the inside is cooked. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs high surface heat and a dry surface.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ketchup, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ketchup, butter, 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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