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Broiled Beefsteak

A thick beefsteak cooked over a broiler, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broiler

  1. Grease the broiler with beef suet or butter, and optionally rub it with a raw onion.

Broil the steak

  1. Place the beefsteak on the broiler and hold it close to the coals for 1 minute.

  2. Turn the broiler and cook the other side for 1 minute to seal in the juices.

  3. Move the broiler to the top of the range and cook over clear coals for 15 to 17 minutes, depending on thickness and fire strength.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the steak to a hot dish, season with salt and pepper, and rub both sides with butter or a mixture of butter and lemon juice.

  2. Cover the steak for 1 minute before serving.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Provides the main protein, which firms and browns as its surface cooks over the coals.
Beef suet or butter
Greases the broiler so the steak does not stick and adds a little richness.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the finished steak when rubbed over it.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the butter finish.

The step that matters

Sealing the first sides over intense heat. Searing both sides briefly over very hot coals browns the surface and helps hold juices inside, so the steak stays moister. Cooking too long at this stage can dry the outside before the centre is done.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, butter, lemon):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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