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Planked Club Steak

A Porterhouse steak served on a wooden plank with a butter‑pepper mixture, Duchess potato border, and sautéed mushroom caps.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Planked Club Steak

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix butter, red pepper, green pepper, parsley, onion, garlic, and lemon juice in a bowl.

  2. Spread one-third of the butter mixture on the center of a wooden plank.

  3. Using a pastry bag, arrange a border of Duchess potatoes around the edge of the plank.

Cook and serve

  1. Pan-broil the Porterhouse steak for 4 minutes, then place it on the plank.

  2. Spread the remaining butter mixture over the steak, then place it in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) to finish cooking.

  3. Garnish with sautéed mushroom caps.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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

Butter
Carries the herbs and aromatics and adds richness and moisture to the steak.
Porterhouse steak
Main protein; pan-broiling sears the outside while the oven finishes the interior.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that blooms in the warm butter.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and herbs.

The step that matters

Pan-broil the steak before the oven. Searing the outside first builds browning and flavour, while the oven finishes the centre gently. Searing too briefly or too long leaves the interior unevenly cooked.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, onion, garlic, lemon, potato. 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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