Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Broiled Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat the grill and ensure it is clean.
Grease the grill bars if the meat is lean.
Warm your serving platter.
Cook and serve
Place the meat on the grill and cook without burning.
Turn the meat over two or three times before serving hot.
Once cooked, place the meat on the platter.
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and drizzle with melted butter.
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.
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Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,594 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,777 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Meat
- Is the main food cooked directly over the heat, becoming browned and tender on the outside.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and moistening the surface of the cooked meat.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the meat and draws out surface moisture that helps it brown.
The step that matters
Place the meat on the grill and cook without burning. Meat placed directly over high heat can char on the outside before the inside is cooked. Turning it regularly and keeping the grill clean helps it cook evenly and brown without scorching.
“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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