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Steak Florentine

A steak served with a sautéed onion and tomato sauce, finished under a broiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steak Florentine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the topping

  1. Wipe and trim the sirloin as usual.

  2. In a frying pan, slowly render the fat from the pork until crisp and brown. Remove the pork and set aside.

  3. Add the onions to the hot fat and cook slowly for 30 minutes until tender and deep yellow, but not brown.

  4. Stir in the strained tomato and season with red pepper and salt. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steak as usual.

  2. Spread a thin layer of onions on a hot platter, place the steak on top, and sprinkle with the remaining onions.

  3. Cover closely for 3 minutes before serving.

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

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Sirloin
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is broiled and served.
Onions
Soften slowly into a sweet, tender base that forms the bed and topping for the steak.
Fat salt pork
Rendered fat cooks the onions, adding savory richness and flavor to the topping.
Strained tomato
Adds acidity and body, thickening the onions into a sauce-like topping.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions slowly. Cooking onions slowly over moderate heat lets their sugars develop gently, giving sweetness and tenderness. Browning them too fast turns them bitter and dark, which changes the intended mild, deep-yellow result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, tomato, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, tomato, 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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