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Chef's Steak Sauce

"Recently on vacation we ate at a wonderful restaurant. The steak I ordered had a magnificent sauce poured over it. I ordered it two nights in a row it was so good. I asked the waiter if he knew what was in it and was shocked when he came back 5 minutes later with the recipe. I have had to scale it down due to the fact that the original recipe make about 4 gallons! I freeze left leftovers in additional containers."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,120 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

The recipe

2 quarts
Prep15 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Pour the apple juice, distilled white vinegar, soy sauce, molasses, 2 cups water and lemon juice into a large heavy stockpot and stir to combine.

  2. Add the minced ginger, cayenne pepper, ground mustard, ground cloves, halved jalapeno, quartered onion, whole black peppercorns, garlic cloves, prepared horseradish and bay leaves, and stir well.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low so it stays at a gentle simmer.

  4. Simmer uncovered for about 60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until the sauce is noticeably thicker and well flavored.

  5. Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool for about 15 minutes.

  6. Strain the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean bowl, pressing on the solids to extract liquid, and discard the solids.

  7. Let the sauce cool completely, then pour it into clean bottles or jars, seal, and refrigerate until ready to use.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sauce + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + gingertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,799 recipes

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

Vinegar and mustard share little aroma chemistry, yet 14,067 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sauce, molasses, lemon, ginger, pepper, mustard):

  1. Limebetter flavor fit
  2. Orangebetter flavor fit
  3. Mangobetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sauce, molasses, lemon, ginger, pepper, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).