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Broiled Beefsteak

A steak grilled or baked, seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, served with buttered pan juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Grill the steak

  1. Preheat the grill over hot coals.

  2. Grease the grill bars with butter.

  3. Place the steak on the grill.

  4. Turn the steak quickly until cooked to your liking.

Prepare and bake

  1. If the steak is tough, pound both sides with a steak mallet. Pound the steak.

  2. Season the steak with salt and pepper.

  3. Dredge the steak lightly with flour.

  4. Place the steak on a baking sheet.

  5. Bake the steak in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Transfer the steak to a hot platter.

  2. Spread butter on the steak.

  3. Add a small piece of butter to the pan juices.

  4. Thicken the pan juices with a little flour.

  5. Pour the thickened juices over the steak.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or porterhouse steak
Forms the main body of the dish and browns on its surface when exposed to high heat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the steak and pan juices taste savoury.
Flour
Lightly coats the steak to aid browning and thickens the pan juices into a sauce.

The step that matters

Turn the steak quickly until cooked to your liking. High heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, but overcooking squeezes moisture out of the meat and leaves it tough and dry. Checking doneness early helps keep it juicy.

“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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