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Steak a LA Mode

A steak cooked in a vinegar and chili sauce with mustard, sugar, and acid jelly, thickened with flour if needed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steak a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Combine boiling water, salt, pepper, vinegar, chili sauce, mustard, and sugar in a skillet and boil for a few moments.

  2. Add the well-beaten steak or slices of cold beef and cook for a few moments.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the steak or beef on a heated meat dish.

  2. Cut the acid jelly into small bits and place over the steak.

  3. Pour the dressing over the steak.

  4. If the dressing is not thick enough, stir in a little flour mixed smoothly with cold water and boil for a moment.

  5. Serve the steak with the sauce.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Coffee + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  5. Mustard + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 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

Chili sauce or tomato ketchup
Provides tomato-based sweetness, acidity and body to the dressing.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that rounds out the sharp vinegar and mustard.
Mixed mustard
Contributes pungent flavour and a little heat to the dressing.
Acid jelly
Adds tart, fruity acidity and gloss when placed over the hot meat.
Flour
Thickens the dressing so it coats the meat rather than running off.

The step that matters

Boiling the flour thickener. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before it goes in, and the dressing must boil briefly, so the starch swells fully and thickens without lumps.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, coffee, sugar, beef, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, coffee, sugar, beef, flour. 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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