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Broiling. Chops or Steaks.

Broiled steaks with onion, allspice, black pepper, simmered in water and thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Broiling. Chops or Steaks.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure the steaks are tender by letting them hang for a few days before cooking.

  2. Preheat a clear brisk fire and sprinkle a little salt on it.

  3. Heat the gridiron and set it at an angle to prevent fat from dripping into the fire.

Stew and thicken

  1. In a stewpan, lay the steaks with the quartered onion, allspice, and black pepper.

  2. Cover the steaks with boiling water and let them stew gently for one hour.

  3. Thicken the liquid by mixing the flour and butter on a plate, then add it to the stewpan.

  4. Shake the stewpan over the fire for five minutes until ready.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through hanging and gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid into a light sauce as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the liquid.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Thickening the liquid with flour and butter. Flour must be fully blended with the butter before it goes into the hot liquid; otherwise it clumps and does not thicken evenly. Shaking the pan while it cooks keeps the starch dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, pepper, flour, butter. 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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