Skip to main content
Main

Imitation Broiled Steak

A steak seasoned with red pepper, parsley, salt, and cooked in butter and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Imitation Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the steak with olive oil.

  2. Heat a dry skillet over high heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the steak in the skillet, turning constantly.

  2. Once cooked to your liking, pour melted butter, hot water, parsley, salt, and red pepper over the steak.

  3. Serve on a hot platter.

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

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

  2. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Is the main protein, cooked by direct high heat to brown the surface.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor when melted over the cooked steak.
Olive oil
Coats the steak so it browns evenly on the hot skillet.

The step that matters

Turning the steak constantly in the dry skillet. Constant turning spreads heat evenly and limits how long any one spot sits on the hot pan, which helps prevent scorching and uneven doneness. Frequent movement is needed because the skillet is very hot and dry.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Rosemaryfits less well
  4. Garlicfits less well

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

More broiled steak recipes

Pan 5 See all 129 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes