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Broiled Beef Steak

A steak seasoned with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter, broiled over live coals.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Broiled Beef Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the steak with a sharp knife, keeping the shape intact.

  2. Pound the steak with a hammer to tenderize it, ensuring each blow penetrates the meat without making it thin.

  3. Combine coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter on a platter.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the steak on a clean, cold gridiron over a bed of live coals, not directly on them.

  2. Turn the steak frequently to prevent juices from gathering on one side.

  3. Once cooked, place the steak on the platter and turn it quickly until the butter melts, creating a rich gravy.

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 + buttertop 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

Steak
Pounding breaks up muscle fibers to tenderize the meat, and turning keeps juices distributed through it.
Butter
Melts into the meat's juices on the hot platter to form a rich, fatty gravy.

The step that matters

Placing the steak over live coals, not directly on them. Indirect heat from coals cooks the steak through gently while the surface browns without burning. Placing it directly on the coals risks charring the outside before the inside is done.

“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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