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Pan-broiled Steak

Pan-broiled steak cooked over high heat, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

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 ↓

Pan-broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the broiling pan until it smokes and lightly oil it with some fat from the steak.

  2. Wipe the steak with a damp cloth and trim off any excess fat or skin.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the steak in the broiling pan and turn it every 10 to 15 seconds until cooked to your preference.

  2. Transfer the steak to a hot platter.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Top each piece with a small lump of butter.

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).

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; its fat lightly oils the pan and adds flavor to the crust.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish as it melts over the hot steak.

The step that matters

Turning the steak every 10 to 15 seconds. Frequent turning in a very hot pan cooks the meat evenly and builds browning without scorching the surface, so the interior reaches the desired doneness before the outside burns.

“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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