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Broiled Beefsteak with Onions

A broiled beefsteak served with sautéed onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and wash the onions.

  2. Slice the onions.

  3. Place the sliced onions in a pan with enough water to cover.

  4. Boil the onions until tender.

  5. Drain the water.

  6. Add a little butter to the pan.

  7. Fry the onions until golden brown.

  8. Keep the fried onions warm off to the side.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the beef steak until cooked to your liking.

  2. Remove the bone from the steak.

  3. Scatter bits of butter, salt, and pepper over the steak.

  4. Top the steak with the fried onions.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Onions
Boiling softens them, and frying in butter browns their sugars for a sweet, golden flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the onions and richness when scattered over the steak.
Beef steak
Main protein; broiling sears the outside while the inside cooks through.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until golden brown. Boiling first leaves the onions wet, so they must be drained well before frying. Surface water prevents browning and makes them steam, so they turn soft and pale instead of sweet and golden.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

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