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Beef Steak

A broiled beef steak seasoned with coarse sea salt and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Beef Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Broil the steak

  1. Preheat a wire broiler that encloses the meat.

  2. Cook the steak, turning it frequently and giving it your full attention.

  3. When the steak is half done, place it on a hot platter and cut into it several times on both sides and edges to press out the juice.

  4. Return the steak to the fire and cook to your desired doneness, either rare or well done.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the steak back on the hot platter, butter it, and season with coarse sea salt and pepper if desired.

  2. Serve hot. If the table is not ready, keep the steak warm in the oven without buttering it until serving to avoid oily gravy.

Before cooking

  1. If the steak is frozen, let it thaw in a warm room before broiling.

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

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

  3. 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

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which sets the texture and flavour of the dish when broiled.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour when spread on the hot steak just before serving.

The step that matters

Turning and cooking to doneness. Turning the steak often under direct heat browns the surface evenly while the inside cooks gently, so it is less likely to burn or overcook before reaching the doneness you want.

“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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