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Broiled Beefsteak with Onions

Broiled beef steak served with browned onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Peel and wash the onions, then slice them.

  2. Place the sliced onions in a skillet with enough water to cover and boil until tender.

  3. Drain the water, add 2 tablespoons of butter, and fry the onions until they are nicely browned.

  4. Keep the fried onions warm on the side of the stove.

Cook and serve the steak

  1. Broil the beef steak until cooked to your liking.

  2. Remove the bone from the steak, then scatter bits of butter, salt, and pepper over it.

  3. Top the steak with the fried onions before serving.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main protein, which firms and browns as it cooks under the broiler.
Onions
Boiling then frying softens them and browns their natural sugars for sweetness and depth.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the onions and enriches the steak with flavour and richness.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until nicely browned. Boiling first softens the onions, but browning needs dry, hot contact with fat. Drain well so the onions fry rather than steam, letting their sugars caramelise for sweetness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

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