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Broiled Steak

A ½ inch thick beef steak seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, seared on a griddle and finished in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and sear

  1. Beat the steak with a meat mallet.

  2. Preheat a griddle over hot coals.

  3. Place the steak on the griddle and sear for a minute on each side.

Finish

  1. Transfer the steak to a pan, season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Cover the pan and let it cook for 3 to 5 minutes.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main protein; searing browns its surface while the inside stays tender.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, helping the steak brown and stay moist during finishing.

The step that matters

Searing the steak on the griddle. A hot surface browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, building flavor. If the griddle is not hot enough, the steak steams and turns grey instead of browning.

“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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