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To Broil Beef-Steaks

Broiled beef steaks seasoned with pepper, salt, and optional shallot or mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Broil Beef-Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the grill and rub it with suet.

  2. Place the beef steaks on the hot grill.

Broil

  1. Broil until one side begins to brown, then turn the steaks.

Serve

  1. Lift the steaks with tongs or a knife and fork into a hot dish.

  2. Add a bit of butter under the steaks.

  3. Optionally add chopped shallot or onion and mushroom ketchup to the dish.

  4. Beat the steaks with a rolling pin.

  5. Season the steaks with pepper and salt.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Main protein that browns on the hot grill and provides the meat flavour and texture.
Butter
Fat that adds richness and a smooth, savoury flavour to the steaks.

The step that matters

Broil until one side begins to brown, then turn the steaks. Browning on the hot grill develops savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Turning once a crust forms, rather than too early or too late, gives an even browned surface while the inside stays juicy.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, mushroom, ketchup. 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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