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Broiled Steak

A steak grilled and seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, and garnished with parsley and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat and grease the bars of a grill or gridiron over a bright fire with live coals.

  2. Trim the steak, removing the tough end of the porter-house.

Cook

  1. Lay the steak on the grill, cover, and sear one side.

  2. Turn the steak to sear the other side, flipping it occasionally while cooking.

Serve

  1. Rub the platter with a bit of onion before serving for added flavor.

  2. Transfer the steak to a hot platter and season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Porter-house or sirloin steak
Is the main cut that is seared on the grill, giving the dish its meaty texture.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor when seasoning the hot steak.

The step that matters

Turning the steak while searing. Flipping occasionally helps the surface brown evenly without burning, while the interior cooks through gently. Searing over a very hot fire, with the grill bars greased, keeps the steak from sticking and forms a flavorful crust.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, parsley, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, parsley, lemon. 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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