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Beefsteak, Grilled

A simple grilled beefsteak seasoned with salt and pepper, served hot with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beefsteak, Grilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fire

  1. Prepare a clear, bright fire free from smoke.

  2. Sprinkle a handful of salt on the fire a few minutes before grilling.

  3. Heat the gridiron.

  4. Rub the gridiron with paper.

  5. Rub the gridiron with fat or suet to prevent sticking.

Grill and serve

  1. Brush the steak with salad oil or warm butter before grilling.

  2. Grill the steak, turning frequently with steak tongs or a fork.

  3. Avoid piercing the meat while grilling.

  4. Cook until the outside is dark and the inside is red and juicy, about 10 to 15 minutes.

  5. Spread butter on the cooked steak.

  6. Sprinkle the cooked steak with salt and pepper.

  7. Serve the steak on a hot dish.

  8. Garnish with watercress or scraped horseradish if desired.

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 + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Steak
Its fat and muscle fibres give the meat its tenderness and juiciness when cooked over high heat.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the cooked steak, and warm butter brushed on before grilling helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Avoid piercing the meat while grilling. Piercing lets the juices escape, which dries the steak. Turning with tongs or a fork keeps the juices inside and gives a juicier result.

“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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