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To Boil Beef Steaks

Grilled beef steaks seasoned with pepper and suet, served hot with optional mushroom catsup or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Boil Beef Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select beef steaks from the middle of a well-kept, finely grained, tender rump.

  2. Trim and slice the steaks evenly, dividing them if very large.

  3. Prepare a strong, clear fire and heat the grill bars without burning them.

Grill and serve

  1. Wipe the grill with fresh mutton suet and lightly pepper the steaks.

  2. Place the steaks on the grill and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once.

  3. Catch any juices that drain from the steaks in the serving dish.

  4. Serve immediately with hot plates and dish.

  5. If desired, warm mushroom catsup in the serving dish or place thin slices of fresh butter under the steaks.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Provides the main meat, whose tenderness depends on choosing fine-grained, well-kept cuts.
Fresh mutton suet
Greases the grill bars so the steaks do not stick and gain a light surface sear.

The step that matters

Heat the grill without burning the bars. A strong, clear fire heats the grill evenly; if the bars burn, they char the surface and can leave smoky, bitter flavour on the steak while the inside stays underdone.

“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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