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Broiled Steak

A steak grilled over a hot fire, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, served with lemon slices, parsley, or watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the grill

  1. Rub the bars of the grill smooth and grease them slightly.

  2. If the fire is not clear, throw a handful of salt into it to clear it.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the sirloin steak on the grill over a hot fire.

  2. Broil the steak, turning it frequently to prevent burning, until done to your liking.

  3. Test doneness by pressing the tips of your fingers on the steak; it should spring back if rare.

  4. Prepare maitre d'hotel butter while the steak is broiling.

  5. Spread the butter over the steak after placing it on a hot dish.

  6. Season with pepper and salt.

  7. Add a little butter.

  8. Garnish with lemon slices, parsley, or watercress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 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

Sirloin steak
Forms the main body of the dish; its fat and muscle develop flavor and juiciness when broiled.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting over the hot steak to carry flavor.

The step that matters

Turning the steak frequently. Frequent turning over a hot fire helps the surface cook evenly and prevents burning before the interior reaches the desired doneness. Checking doneness by touch, as the record describes, helps avoid overcooking.

“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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