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Broiled Beefsteak

A ¾‑inch thick porterhouse or tenderloin steak broiled over a bright fire, seasoned with coarse sea salt, white pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Broiled Beefsteak

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.

Prepare the broiler

  1. Rub the bars of the broiler with a piece of beef suet.

Broil the steaks

  1. Lay the steaks on the broiler and broil over a clear, bright fire for 12 to 15 minutes.

  2. Turn the steaks as soon as they brown and often enough to prevent the juices from escaping.

  3. When done, remove the steaks to a hot platter.

Season and serve

  1. Sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt and white pepper.

  2. Add generous bits of butter on top and set in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until the butter is melted.

  3. Serve immediately, optionally adding Maitre d'hotel butter or sprinkling powdered mushrooms 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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  4. White pepper + mushroomtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together648 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl butyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. White pepper + buttertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Choice steaks
Provide the main meat, whose juices and tenderness the cooking method is designed to keep.
Beef suet
Rubbed on the broiler bars to add a little fat that keeps the steaks from sticking.
Butter
Melts over the hot steaks, adding richness and moisture to the surface.

The step that matters

Turning the steaks. Turn the steaks as soon as they brown and often enough. Frequent turning under high heat helps the surface seal and keeps juices from escaping, so the steak stays moist rather than drying out.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, mushroom. 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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