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Beef Steaks

Grilled beef steaks seasoned with pepper and sea salt, layered with butter, served with shallot sauce, horseradish, and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare the gridiron

  1. Clean the gridiron and clear the fire.

  2. Rub the gridiron with beef suet and heat it.

Cook the steaks

  1. Place the steaks on the hot gridiron and broil until browned on one side.

  2. Turn the steaks and brown the other side.

  3. Transfer the steaks to a hot dish, layering a slice of butter between each steak.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt, and let them rest for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Return the steaks to the gridiron, turning them until cooked to your liking.

Serve

  1. Slice the shallot thinly and mix it with water.

  2. Pour the shallot and water mixture over the steaks before serving.

  3. Serve with horseradish and pickles.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Main protein; browning on the hot gridiron gives the surface its savory flavor and color.
Butter
Layered between the steaks, it adds richness and moisture as it melts over the meat.
Shallot
Sliced thin and steeped in water, it adds a mild, sharp onion aroma to the finished steaks.
Horseradish
Served as a sauce, it adds sharp heat that cuts through the richness of the beef.

The step that matters

Return the steaks to the gridiron and turn them until cooked to your liking. Steaks keep cooking after they leave the heat, and thickness varies, so checking doneness during the second side prevents overcooking. Resting after cooking lets juices redistribute through the meat.

Swap the horseradish

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, shallot, sauce. 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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