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How to Broil Steak

A steak cooked by broiling or pan-frying with salt, pepper, butter, and optional coffee.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

How to Broil Steak

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place a dripping pan inside the oven.

Sear the steak

  1. Let the steak brown lightly on both sides.

  2. Transfer the steak to the hot pan in the oven.

  3. If the steak is thick, let it cook for 5 to 10 minutes.

  4. Heat a frying pan until smoking hot.

  5. Place the steak in the pan without grease.

  6. Loosen the steak with a knife once browned.

  7. Turn the steak over when juices appear.

  8. Press the steak closely to the pan.

  9. Turn the steak every 15 seconds until cooked to your liking.

Finish

  1. Season the steak with salt and pepper.

  2. Press butter onto a hot platter.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of coffee to the pan.

  4. Let it boil.

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

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

  2. Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + coffeetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main protein that browns on the outside while staying juicy inside.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that carries flavour across the hot platter.
Coffee
Adds roasted, slightly bitter notes to the pan juices that pair well with beef.

The step that matters

Heating the frying pan until smoking hot. Very high, dry heat drives the Maillard reaction, which creates a deep brown crust and savoury flavour. Placing the steak in a cool or greasy pan causes steaming and sticking 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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