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Flank Steak

A baked flank steak served with potatoes and a butter‑bread‑crumb dressing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Flank Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Score the flank steak on both sides.

  2. Season it well with coarse sea salt and black pepper, then dredge it with flour.

Assemble the pan

  1. Place the steak in a baking pan and add enough water to cover it.

  2. Peel the potatoes and add them to the pan with the steak.

  3. Make a dressing of bread crumbs, plenty of butter, and more salt and pepper.

  4. Spread the dressing over and around the steak.

Bake

  1. Bake the steak, basting it often.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flank steak
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender with scoring and slow, moist baking.
Flour
Dredging coats the steak surface, helping it brown and thickening the pan liquid.
Potatoes
Absorb the savoury juices from the pan and soften as they bake.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping over the steak once baked.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dressing and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Basting the steak often. Regular basting keeps the surface moist with pan liquid and helps the dressing and meat brown evenly, preventing dryness during the long bake.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, bread, 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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