Name: Veal Steak
Ingredients: veal steak; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter

Why it works: Veal and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,049 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Veal Steak

Ingredients

veal steak
coarse sea salt
black pepper
butter

Directions

Broil the veal steak over hot coals or fry it.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper while cooking.
Once cooked, place on a heated platter and spread generously with butter.

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.

Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steak: Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat for cooking over heat.
Butter: Adds richness and a glossy finish, and carries flavour over the hot meat.

“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.