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To Broil Beef Steaks

A method for grilling beef steaks with suet and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Broil Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the steaks neatly and divide if very large.

  2. Prepare a strong, clear fire.

  3. Heat the gridiron bars without burning them, then wipe and rub with fresh mutton suet.

  4. Lightly pepper the steaks, but do not season with salt yet.

Broil and serve

  1. Place the steaks on the gridiron and cook until done on one side, then turn to cook the other side.

  2. Catch any gravy in the dish for 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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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

Beef steaks
Tender rump meat provides the main body of the dish, cooked directly over the fire.
Fresh mutton suet
Rubbed on the hot gridiron bars, it adds a thin layer of fat that keeps the steaks from sticking.

The step that matters

Heating the gridiron without burning it. Bars that are hot enough to sear but not scorched give clean browning and prevent sticking. Suet rubbed onto well-heated bars melts into a thin film, while burnt residue would taint the flavour and stick to the meat.

“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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