Name: Broiled Steak
Ingredients: steak; small piece of fat; butter; pepper; coarse sea salt; warm water or hot fresh coffee

Why it works: Butter and pepper 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 Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Gash the edges of the steak to prevent curling.
Melt a small piece of fat in a hot skillet.
Add the steak to the skillet and turn it constantly until cooked.
Prepare a heated dish with butter, pepper, salt, and warm water or hot coffee.
Place the steak in the dressing and serve immediately.

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.

Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + coffeetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,442 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Pepper + coffeetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together313 recipes

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