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To Boil Beef Steaks

Beef steaks grilled on a hot gridiron, lightly peppered and served hot.

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 Boil Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the steaks from the middle of a tender rump of beef.

  2. Heat the gridiron until hot but not burning.

  3. Wipe the gridiron with fresh mutton suet.

  4. Lightly pepper the steaks, avoiding salt before cooking.

Grill and serve

  1. Place the steaks on the gridiron and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once.

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

  3. Serve immediately on hot plates.

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
Provide the meat that is seared and cooked over direct heat.
Fresh mutton suet
Greases the hot gridiron so the steaks do not stick and the surface can brown.

The step that matters

Place the steaks on the gridiron and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once.. The gridiron must be hot but not burning, so the surface browns through the Maillard reaction while the interior cooks. Too little heat steams the meat grey, and too much chars the outside before the centre is done.

“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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