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To Broil Beef Steaks

A method for broiling beef steaks from rump or ribs, seasoned with coarse sea salt and optionally served with butter or gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Broil Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the steaks from the rump or ribs and beat them with a rolling pin.

Cook

  1. Preheat a clean gridiron over a clear, hot fire.

  2. Place the steaks on the gridiron and turn them constantly until cooked to your liking.

  3. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the steaks just before removing them from the fire.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, plain, or with made gravy and sliced onion, or rub with butter before serving.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Provide the main substance; beating them with a rolling pin tenderises the meat by breaking up its fibres.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the hot steak when rubbed on before serving.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury aroma when sliced and served with made gravy.

The step that matters

Turning the steaks constantly. Constant turning over a hot fire cooks the steaks evenly and keeps the surfaces from burning before the interior reaches the desired doneness. Heat exposure without turning can char the outside while the middle stays underdone.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter. 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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