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Beef Steaks

Grilled beef steaks served with butter, minced shallot or onion, ketchup, salt, pepper, and horseradish or oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 376 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Grill the steaks

  1. Preheat your grill over a clear fire.

  2. Place the steaks on the grill and cook, turning them frequently to preserve juices.

  3. Once cooked, rub the steaks with butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Add minced shallot or onion and ketchup to the serving dish.

  2. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

  3. Serve with scraped horseradish or oyster sauce.

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. Shallot + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Ketchup + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together223 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + horseradishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
The main protein, which browns and firms as it cooks over direct heat.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the cooked steaks.
Shallot or onion
Adds sharp, savory flavor to the sauce base in the serving dish.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the serving dish.

The step that matters

Turning the steaks frequently. Frequent turning over a clear fire helps the meat cook evenly and limits surface charring, which helps keep juices inside the steak rather than letting them run out.

Swap the horseradish

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ketchup, shallot, 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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