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Broiled Beef Steaks

Steaks of beef, broiled with suet, salt, pepper, butter, mushroom catsup, and raw shallot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and shallot 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 ↓

Broiled Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the grill to high heat.

  2. Wipe the steaks with fresh mutton suet.

  3. Lightly pepper the steaks. Do not add salt yet.

Cook

  1. Place the steaks on the grill and cook for 4-5 minutes on one side.

  2. Turn the steaks and cook for another 4-5 minutes.

  3. Catch any juices that drain from the steaks in a serving dish.

Serve

  1. Warm mushroom catsup in the serving dish.

  2. Rub the warmed catsup with a raw shallot before serving.

  3. Serve immediately with hot plates and dish.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 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. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 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
The main protein, which browns on the hot grill and is served as the centre of the dish.
Fresh mutton suet
Wiped over the steaks to add fat that helps keep the meat moist and flavourful on the grill.
Mushroom catsup
Warmed in the serving dish to add a savoury, umami-rich sauce for the steaks.
Raw shallot
Rubbed over the warm catsup to add a mild, sharp aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the steaks on high heat. High heat browns the surface quickly through the Maillard reaction, building flavour, while the inside stays juicier. Too low a heat lets the steaks steam and turn grey and tough.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, pepper, butter, mushroom):

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

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