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 ↓
Broiled Steak
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and broil
Grease the broiler with a bit of fat from the meat.
Wash the steak quickly.
Place the thickest part of the steak near the middle of the broiler.
Turn the broiler every ten seconds.
Finish and serve
When well browned on both sides, place on a hot platter.
Season with salt, pepper, and butter.
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.
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Browns on the surface under high heat, forming flavour, while the thick centre cooks through.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, buttery finish to the cooked steak.
The step that matters
Browning both sides evenly. Surface browning comes from the Maillard reaction at high heat. Frequent turning stops one side scorching while the thick middle cooks through.
“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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