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To Broil Beef Steaks

Broiled beef steaks seasoned with pepper, optionally served with mushroom ketchup and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Broil Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select steaks from the middle of a well-kept, finely grained, tender rump of beef.

  2. Trim and divide large steaks if necessary.

  3. Preheat the gridiron until hot but not burning.

  4. Wipe the gridiron with fresh mutton suet.

Broil and serve

  1. Lightly pepper the steaks and place them on the gridiron.

  2. Broil for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once.

  3. Catch any juices in a dish.

  4. Serve immediately on hot plates.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Beef steaks
Provide the meat itself, whose fine grain and tenderness shape the eating quality of the dish.
Fresh mutton suet
Coats the gridiron with fat so the steaks release less and are less likely to stick.

The step that matters

Preheat the gridiron until hot but not burning. A very hot, clean surface sears the outside quickly, building browning and flavour while limiting sticking. If it is too cool, the steaks steam and turn grey; if it burns, the surface becomes bitter and smoky.

“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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