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Broiled Beef Steak and Gravy

A broiled sirloin steak served with a butter and water gravy seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and pepper 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 ↓

Broiled Beef Steak and Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Notch the edges of the steak to prevent curling.

  2. Beat the steak on the table with the butt end of a coarse knife.

Cook

  1. Broil the steak over the fire until nicely colored on both sides.

  2. Place the steak in a pan with butter, water, salt, and black pepper.

  3. Heat on the range until almost boiling, then let it set in the oven for a few minutes.

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. Butter + peppertop 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

Sirloin steak
Is the main cut that is tenderized, browned, and then finished in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the gravy taste rounded.
Water
Forms a thin liquid with the butter in the pan, creating the gravy and keeping the steak moist.

The step that matters

Heat on the range until almost boiling, then let it set in the oven. Stopping just short of a full boil keeps the butter and pan liquid from breaking or turning greasy, while the gentle oven rest lets the steak finish warming and absorb the gravy's flavor.

“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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