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To Broil Beef Steaks the Best Way

Broil beef steaks with suet, butter, pepper, salt, shallot, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Broil Beef Steaks the Best Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the steaks from the rump of beef.

  2. Rub the gridiron with beef suet and heat it.

Broil and rest

  1. Place the steaks on the hot gridiron and broil until they begin to brown.

  2. Turn the steaks and brown the other side.

  3. Transfer the steaks to a hot dish, placing a slice of butter between each steak.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt, and let them rest for 2-3 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Thinly slice the shallot and mix it with the water.

  2. Pour the shallot mixture over the steaks, turning them until cooked to your liking.

  3. Serve the steaks with the shallot and water mixture.

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

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

  2. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  3. Beef + shallottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,103 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + shallottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 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

Beef steaks
Form the main body of the dish, cooking and browning on the outside while staying tender inside.
Beef suet
Greases the gridiron so the steaks do not stick and the surface can brown.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts over the hot steaks.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sharp onion flavour when softened in the water mixture.

The step that matters

Broiling until the steaks begin to brown. The gridiron must be hot before the steaks go on, so the surface browns quickly through the Maillard reaction. Cooking too slowly or too long can dry the meat or leave it grey rather than seared.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, 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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