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Broiled Beefsteak

A porterhouse steak rubbed with lemon, broiled, then buttered and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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

  1. Wipe the steak with a wet cloth and rub it with lemon juice.

  2. Grease a wire broiler with trimmed fat from the steak.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the steak in the broiler and broil over a hot fire to sear the surface.

  2. Turn the steak occasionally until well cooked on both sides.

  3. Remove the steak to a hot platter, spread with butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

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

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + peppertop 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

Porterhouse steak
Provides the main protein, which browns on the surface and cooks through as it broils.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish once spread over the hot steak.
Lemon
Its juice adds a bright acidity that complements the beef.

The step that matters

Searing the surface over a hot fire. A very hot fire browns the outside quickly through the Maillard reaction, building flavor before the interior overcooks. A weak fire steams the surface and leaves the steak grey and dry.

“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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