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Porterhouse Steak

A porterhouse steak larded with bacon and cooked with vegetables and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Porterhouse Steak

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into lardons 1 inch long and lard the steak on one side.

  2. Slice the vegetables and place them in a stewpan with the cloves, seasoning, and bruised garlic.

Cook

  1. Lay the steak on top, larding side up, and pour a little stock around it.

  2. Cover tightly and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) or simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Once cooked, lift out the steak and crisp the bacon under a gas grill for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour off any excess fat from the pan, add the remaining stock, and bring to a boil.

  2. Place the steak on a hot dish and strain the gravy over it.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Porterhouse steak
Is the main cut of meat that is larded and braised until tender.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the steak as it cooks and crisps at the end.
Stock
Provides moisture for gentle braising and forms the base of the gravy.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the braising liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and cook gently. Keeping the pan tightly covered traps moisture so the steak braises rather than drying out. Gentle heat lets the connective tissue soften slowly, giving a tender result instead of a tough one.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, pepper, turnip, garlic):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, pepper, turnip, garlic. 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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