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Broiled Beefsteak

A steak cooked by broiling, then finished in a butter and water gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the steak without soaking it in water.

  2. Heat a dry frying pan until very hot.

Cook

  1. Place the steak in the pan and cover it with a tin plate or pan.

  2. Turn the steak often using meat tongs.

  3. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes for a steak 1 to 1¼ inches thick.

Serve

  1. Transfer the cooked steak to a hot dish and season with salt and pepper.

  2. In a separate hot dish, mix the butter, salt, pepper, and boiling water.

  3. Add the steak to the mixture and turn it to coat both sides.

  4. If more gravy is needed, add boiling water to the fat in the pan, mix, and pour over the steak.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish; searing in a very hot pan browns its surface.
Butter or beef dripping
Adds fat and richness, coating the steak and enriching the gravy.
Boiling water
Loosens the pan fat and juices into a thin gravy.

The step that matters

Heat the dry pan until very hot before adding the steak. A very hot surface browns the steak quickly through the Maillard reaction, creating flavour and colour. A pan that is not hot enough lets the meat release moisture and steam, leaving it grey and less savoury.

“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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