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Porterhouse Steaks a LA Soyer

A porterhouse steak seasoned, buttered, topped with breadcrumbs, chives, parsley, broiled, and served with horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 113 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Porterhouse Steaks a LA Soyer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Pare and flatten the steaks with a cleaver.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Baste with melted butter.

  4. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, chives, and parsley.

Broil and serve

  1. Flatten slightly again and broil over a moderate charcoal fire until rare.

  2. Mix beef extract with maitre d'hotel sauce and pour over the steaks.

  3. Serve with fresh-scraped horseradish on the side.

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. Chive + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + horseradishtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Porterhouse steaks
Provide the main protein, cooked quickly over high heat to stay tender and juicy when rare.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture to the surface, helping the crumbs brown and the meat feel rich.
Fresh bread crumbs
Form a crust on the surface that toasts under the heat and adds light texture.
Beef extract
Concentrates savory, meaty flavor in the sauce poured over the steaks.

The step that matters

Broiling until rare. Thickness and fire intensity change quickly, so the steak can overcook past rare in minutes. Checking early and resting the meat helps keep juices in the muscle fibers rather than running out onto the plate.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, bread, chive, parsley, beef, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, bread, chive, parsley, beef, sauce. 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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