Why it works: Beef and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Boiled Beef Steaks
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the grill
Preheat the grill until hot and rub the grill bars with suet.
Sprinkle a little salt over the coals.
Grill the steaks
Place the steaks on the grill and turn them often.
Keep a dish close to the fire to drain the gravy from the steaks.
If smoke occurs, temporarily remove the steaks from the grill.
Cook the steaks over a brisk fire for about 10 minutes.
Serve
Serve the steaks on a hot plate with a small slice of butter on each and pour the gravy over them, adding a pinch of salt.
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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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef steaks
- Provide the main meat; their thickness and fat determine how they cook and how much juice they release.
- Suet
- Rubbed on the grill bars to add a little fat, helping prevent the steaks from sticking.
- Butter
- Melts over the hot steaks, adding richness and moisture to the meat.
The step that matters
Turning the steaks and managing smoke. Turning often over a brisk fire keeps the surface from scorching before the inside cooks. Dripping fat causes flare-ups and smoke, which can char the meat, so removing the steaks briefly prevents bitter burnt flavour.
“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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