Name: Plain Rump Steak
Ingredients: 3 pounds tender rump steak; 1 teaspoon salt; ¼ teaspoon pepper; 1 ounce butter; 2 tablespoons grated horseradish

Why it works: Pepper and horseradish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,646 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Plain Rump Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Broil the steak according to your preferred method.
Place the cooked steak on a hot dish.
Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the butter over the steak.
Add the grated horseradish on the side of the platter.
Serve hot without delay.

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.

Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,646 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + horseradishtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together947 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak: Provides the main protein; broiling browns the surface and the interior cooks through.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour over the hot surface of the steak.
Horseradish: Adds a sharp, pungent bite that cuts through the richness of the steak and butter.