Name: Porterhouse Steak with Oysters
Ingredients: 1 porterhouse steak; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper; 2 tablespoons butter, softened; Juice of ½ lemon; 1 pint oysters, shucked; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Porterhouse Steak with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

Broil the steak on both sides and transfer it to a hot dish.
Season the steak with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Rub the softened butter and lemon juice into the steak.

Make the oyster topping

In a saucepan, stir the oysters until the edges ruffle.
Add the butter and flour mixture, cooked to a roux, to the oysters.
Pour the oyster mixture over the hot steak and serve immediately.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Porterhouse steak: Provides the main meat and is the base the oysters are served over.
Oysters: Add briny, savoury flavour and a soft, tender texture to the dish.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the steak and the roux.
All-purpose flour: Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the oyster mixture body.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and the oysters.

The step that matters

Cooking the oysters until the edges ruffle. Oysters are delicate and overcooking them makes them tough and shrunken. Stopping as soon as the edges curl keeps them plump and tender.

“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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Porterhouse Steak with Oysters