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To Cook a Steak

A steak seasoned with salt and pepper, seared in butter, then finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Cook a Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound or score the steak and season it with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat a skillet until very hot, then add the steak.

  3. Stir and press the steak with a knife until it is very juicy.

  4. Cover the skillet closely for a few minutes.

  5. Turn the steak over and cook for a few more minutes.

Serve

  1. Prepare a heated and buttered platter.

  2. Place the steak on the platter and add a few pieces of butter on top.

  3. Put the platter in the oven until the butter melts.

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 + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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 that is seared in the skillet and becomes juicy and browned on the outside.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the finished steak as it melts over the top.

The step that matters

Heating the skillet until very hot before adding the steak. A very hot pan sears the surface quickly, creating browning and flavor while helping keep the inside juicy. A cool pan lets the steak steam and release moisture, leaving it grey and tough.

“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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