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Spanish Steak

A thick round steak braised with onions, butter, lard, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and potatoes in boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Spanish Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the flour into the round steak.

  2. In a hot skillet, melt the butter and lard.

Brown and braise

  1. Brown the steak on both sides in the skillet.

  2. Add the sliced onion, salt, pepper, and bay leaf on top of the steak.

  3. Cover the steak with boiling water.

  4. Cook covered for 15 minutes, then remove the cover and simmer for 2 hours, preventing burning.

Finish

  1. Add halved potatoes to the gravy and cook until brown.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Round steak
Is the main cut that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Flour
Coats the steak, helping it brown and thickening the pan gravy.
Butter and lard
Provide fat for browning the steak and adding richness to the gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens into the gravy.
Potatoes (in the method)
Absorb gravy flavor and brown in the pan at the end.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the cover removed. Once the lid comes off, the liquid reduces and can scorch on the pan bottom; keeping the heat low and checking the pan prevents burning while the tough collagen in the steak slowly breaks down into tender meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coffee, flour, 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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