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Beefsteak with Tomatoes

A steak served with a tomato and onion sauce simmered in beef stock and seasoned with crackers, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Stew the tomatoes and onion in the beef stock for 30 minutes in a saucepan.

  2. Add the crushed crackers, salt, and pepper to the sauce.

Cook and serve the steak

  1. Broil the steak carefully until cooked to your liking.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the steak.

  3. Place the steak in a hot, deep platter.

  4. Pour the boiling sauce over the steak and serve hot.

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 + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Break down during stewing to give the sauce body, moisture and a bright acidic flavor.
Crushed crackers
Thicken the sauce as their starch absorbs liquid and swells during simmering.
Beef stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries savory beef flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the steak's flavor and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling sauce over the steak. The sauce must be kept hot and thick so it coats the steak rather than thinning out. Serving on a hot platter keeps the steak warm while the sauce is poured on.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, beef, pepper, butter. 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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