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Steaks with Oysters

Steaks topped with oyster forcemeat, seasoned, buttered, and cooked, served with a gravy flavored with oyster liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steaks with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Season one side of each steak with pepper, ground mace, and grated lemon peel.

  2. Spread oyster forcemeat half an inch thick on the seasoned side of each steak.

  3. Place the two steaks together.

  4. Brush the outer sides of the steaks with warm butter.

  5. Sprinkle the outer sides with the same seasoning used for the interior.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the steaks over the fire for 1 minute on each side.

  2. Reduce the heat and cook the steaks gently for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on thickness.

  3. Make a little gravy.

  4. Season the gravy with oyster liquor, salt, and pepper to taste.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Steaks
Provide the main body of the dish, cooking through gently while the forcemeat stuffing heats.
Oyster forcemeat
Adds moisture and rich savory flavour that seasons the steak from within.
Warm butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and helps the outside stay moist during cooking.
Grated lemon peel
Contributes bright aromatic citrus oils that lift the richness of the meat and forcemeat.

The step that matters

Reduce the heat before the long gentle cook. Once the outside is seared over the fire, lowering the heat lets the thick steaks and forcemeat cook through evenly without the outside burning or drying out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, pepper, lemon, butter. 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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