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Broiled Steak

A steak broiled with butter, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and optional shallot or parsley, served with fried potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and watercress share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 93 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place a pat of fresh butter under and on top of the steak.

  3. Heat the lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce in a cup in the oven before using.

  4. Optionally place finely shredded shallot or chopped parsley under the steak.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the steak for 8 to 12 minutes until blackened outside and firm to the touch.

  2. Sprinkle drops of lemon juice over the steak and add small pieces of butter on top.

  3. Garnish with sliced lemon, parsley, or watercress before serving.

  4. Serve with fried 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.

  1. Shallot + watercresstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 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

Steak
Is the main protein, browning on the outside while staying firm inside.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting over the steak as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour of the steak.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and salty, tangy flavour to the lemon and butter.

The step that matters

Broil the steak until blackened outside. High direct heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavour. Too little heat or time leaves the steak pale and underdeveloped, while overcooking makes it tough and dry inside.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, shallot, parsley, watercress, fried potato):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, shallot, parsley, watercress, fried potato. 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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