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Porterhouse Steak

A porterhouse steak larded with bacon and cooked with vegetables, stock, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Porterhouse Steak

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the bacon into lardoons 1 inch long.

  2. Lard the steak on one side with the bacon lardoons.

  3. Slice the vegetables.

  4. Place the sliced vegetables in a stewpan with the cloves, seasoning, and bruised garlic.

  5. Lay the steak on top, larding side up.

  6. Pour a little stock around the steak.

  7. Cover tightly.

Bake and make the gravy

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

  2. Lift out the cooked steak.

  3. Crisp the bacon under a gas grill for a few minutes.

  4. Pour off excess fat from the pan.

  5. Add the remaining stock.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. Place the steak on a hot dish.

  8. Strain the gravy over the steak.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Porterhouse steak
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly so it becomes tender in the covered pan.
Bacon fat
Lardoons melt during baking, adding richness and moisture to the lean steak.
Carrot
Sweetness and body in the base vegetables that flavour the gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the vegetables and the resulting gravy.
Stock
Provides liquid for steaming in the covered pan and forms the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Cover tightly before baking. A tight cover traps steam so the steak braises in its own moisture. A loose lid lets moisture escape, leaving the meat drier and firmer.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, turnip, garlic, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, turnip, garlic, pepper. 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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