Name: Porterhouse Steak
Ingredients: 1 Porterhouse steak, 1 inch thick; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; Chipped potatoes

Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Porterhouse Steak

Ingredients

1 Porterhouse steak, 1 inch thick
Coarse sea salt
Black pepper
Chipped potatoes

Directions

Prepare

Season the steak with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook and serve

Grill the steak on both sides for about 8 minutes.
Serve with chipped potatoes.

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.

Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Porterhouse steak: Provides the main protein; grilling browns its surface while the inside cooks through.
Chipped potatoes: Serve as the side dish alongside the steak, adding starch and contrasting texture.

“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.