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Broiled Beefsteak

A thick beef steak broiled over coals, seasoned with butter, sea salt, and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the flank end of the steak for other uses.

  2. Grease the broiler with a little fat from the meat.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the steak over red-hot coals, turning every 10 seconds to sear the outside and keep the juices in.

  2. For rare, broil for 8 minutes; for well-done, broil for 12 minutes.

  3. Serve on a hot platter and season with butter, coarse sea salt, and your choice of 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. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Beef steak
Provides the meat that is seared and cooked to the chosen doneness.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour when seasoned over the hot steak.

The step that matters

Turning the steak every 10 seconds over red-hot coals. Frequent turning sears the outside quickly and keeps juices inside, while the surface stays hot enough to brown. Letting one side sit too long can overcook and dry that face before the centre reaches the desired doneness.

“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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