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Steak for Broiling

Steak broiled over a brisk fire, topped with butter and served with a simple gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steak for Broiling

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the steak

  1. Broil the steak over a brisk fire on a grill or in a strong toaster, turning frequently.

  2. Do not season until the steak is done.

  3. Once cooked, place the steak on a dish and top with small bits of butter.

  4. Stand the dish in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 minute.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For gravy, mix desired amount of butter, ½ cup hot water, a sprinkle of flour, salt, and pepper in a pie plate.

  2. Keep the gravy warm and pour it over the steak before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or porterhouse steak
The main cut, cooked by direct high heat to brown the surface while keeping the inside tender.
Butter
Melts over the hot steak to add richness and moisture, and forms the base of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the hot water and butter mixture into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Seasoning after cooking. The record says not to season until the steak is done. Salt drawn onto a raw surface can draw out moisture and affect browning, so timing the seasoning matters.

“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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