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Broiled Beefsteak. No.3

A broiled porter‑house steak basted with butter, pepper, salt, mustard, and tomato ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Beefsteak. No.3

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the porter‑house steak with a meat mallet.

Grill and baste

  1. Place the steak on a grill over hot coals, turning frequently.

  2. In a hot dish, mix butter, pepper, and salt; baste the steak with this mixture.

Serve

  1. Before serving, add mustard and tomato ketchup to the remaining butter and pour it over the steak.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + ketchuptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Porter-house steak
Is the main cut of meat that is cooked and served as the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the steak stay moist as it cooks.
Mustard
Adds sharp, tangy flavour that balances the richness of the butter.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the buttery sauce poured over the steak.

The step that matters

Turning the steak over hot coals. Turning frequently over high heat helps the surface brown evenly without burning. Moving the meat keeps the outside from charring before the inside is cooked through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, mustard, 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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