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Broiled Beefsteak

A steak broiled and topped with sautéed onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Wash and dry the steak, then trim off all the suet.

  2. Grease the broiler with some of the fat.

  3. Broil the steak over a clean fire, turning it constantly for 8 minutes.

  4. Place the steak on a hot platter and season with salt and pepper on both sides.

Make the onions

  1. Cut the suet into small cubes and fry until the fat is rendered.

  2. Add the sliced onions to the rendered fat and fry for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Season the onions with 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper, then add 1/2 cup of boiling water.

  4. Simmer until the water evaporates and the onions are nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Top the steak with the cooked onions and serve.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which sears and browns quickly over high heat under the broiler.
Suet
Renders into fat that greases the broiler and fries the onions, adding richness and flavor.
Onions
Soften and caramelize in the rendered fat, becoming sweet and browned.

The step that matters

Simmer the onions until the water evaporates. Boiling water softens the onions first; continued simmering drives off the water so the sugars in the onions can brown rather than stew. Stopping early leaves them wet and pale.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper. 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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