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Beefsteak with Oysters

A steak served with boiled oysters, cracker crumbs, butter, and cranberry jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cranberry work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 218 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Beefsteak with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Cook the liquor from the oysters for 2 minutes, then skim well.

  2. Add the oysters and boil for 2 minutes.

Prepare the butter mixture

  1. Mix the cracker crumbs with an equal amount of butter until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steak carefully and place it in a deep dish.

  2. Season the steak with salt, pepper, and butter, then pour the oysters over it.

  3. Serve with brown buttered toast and a glass of cranberry jelly.

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 + cranberrytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Butter + cranberrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together291 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Oyster + cranberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together48 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and are briefly boiled in their own liquor to cook them through.
Cracker crumbs
Mixed with butter to thicken and add body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps bind the cracker crumbs smoothly.
Steak
Forms the base of the dish, broiled and served in a deep dish with the oysters.

The step that matters

Boiling the oysters. Boiling for too long toughens oysters and makes them shrink and taste rubbery, so they should be cooked only briefly until their edges curl.

Swap the cranberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, butter, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Plumfits about as well
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Cranberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, butter, pepper. 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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