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Pan Broiled Steak

Steak broiled in a pan, served with butter, lemon slices, parsley, tomatoes, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pan Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) for at least five minutes.

  2. Ensure the broiler pan and rack are ready.

Cook the steak

  1. Place the steak on the broiler when hot and close to the gas flame without touching it.

  2. Sear the steak on all sides, then turn it using a fork.

  3. Lower the pan about six inches and broil slowly for five minutes on each side.

Baste and serve

  1. Melt a tablespoon of butter and mix in salt and pepper.

  2. Transfer the steak to a heated platter and baste with the butter mixture.

  3. Garnish with lemon slices, parsley, tomatoes, 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

Steak
Provides the main protein; searing browns its surface while the inside cooks gently.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when melted and basted over the cooked steak.

The step that matters

Searing the steak on all sides before lowering the pan. A hot surface browns the meat through the Maillard reaction, building flavour and a crust. Keeping the steak close to the flame without touching it lets it sear evenly, and lowering the pan afterward lets the centre cook without burning the outside.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, lemon, parsley, watercress):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, lemon, parsley, watercress. 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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