Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Porterhouse Steak
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Brush both sides of the steak with warm butter or salad oil.
Sprinkle with pepper and let it rest for 1 hour before cooking.
Cook and serve
Grill over a clear fire until cooked to your liking.
Serve with maitre d’hôtel butter, fried button onions, small stuffed tomatoes, horseradish sauce, or your choice of accompaniment.
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.
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Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Porterhouse steak
- Provides the main meat; its thickness lets it develop a browned crust while staying juicy inside.
- Butter or salad oil
- Coats the surface so it browns evenly and does not dry out over the fire.
The step that matters
Grilling over a clear fire until cooked to your liking. Steak is easy to overcook because the interior keeps heating after it leaves the grill. Judging doneness by feel or an internal thermometer, and pulling it early, keeps it juicy.
“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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