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Porterhouse Steak De Hardy
1 porterhouse steak 11/2-inches thick. Put steak in shallow baking pan, cover with thin sliced onion. Next cover with thin sliced lemon (omit rind). Cover with 1/2 bottle catsup and 1/4 bottle Worcestershire. Put in medium hot oven for 30 minutes; remove from oven, scrape top into sides of pan. Return to oven for 10 minutes, to brown top of steak. Serve hot; cover with sauce in pan; add no pepper, salt or water. Have oven same as for roast meat.
A steak treated less like a grill item than a short braise under a sweet-sharp sauce. The oven does most of the work, and the sauce is the point.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no number; "medium hot" and "same as for roast meat" leave it to the cook's judgement. A modern reading of around 375-400F is a reasonable guess, and the hotter end will help the top brown in the final ten minutes.
- What half a bottle meansKetchup was commonly sold in a 14 oz bottle and Worcestershire in a 5 oz one, though other sizes existed; on those assumptions half a bottle of ketchup is somewhere near 3/4 cup and a quarter-bottle of Worcestershire is 2 to 3 tablespoons. Both are approximations, and the sauce is forgiving either way.
- ThicknessThe steak is meant to be a full 1 1/2 inches thick, cut across the short loin so it carries both strip and tenderloin. A thinner steak will be dry long before the 40 minutes are up.
- DonenessForty minutes at 400F under liquid will take a 1 1/2-inch porterhouse well past medium. If you want it pink, pull the pan at an internal 130-135F in the thickest part of the strip and finish the sauce separately in a skillet.
- The step that mattersScraping the topping down into the sides of the pan is not tidying up. It exposes the meat so the surface can dry and brown in the last ten minutes; skip it and you get a stewed grey top.
- LemonThe recipe specifies omitting the rind. The likely reason is that peel and pith left in the pan can turn the sauce bitter over a long spell in the oven.
- No added saltKetchup and Worcestershire together bring plenty of sodium. Taste the pan sauce before deciding it needs anything.
- YieldOne porterhouse of this size serves two generously, or three if the meat is carved off the bone and spooned over with sauce.
History: Steak dishes named "de" or "a la" somebody were common in American hotel and club cooking, and such house names often passed into home collections. The recipe itself carries no date; the reliance on bottled ketchup and Worcestershire for all the seasoning suggests a period when both were ordinary pantry staples in American kitchens rather than a much older dish. The instruction to add no pepper, salt or water reads as the author's assurance that the bottles have already supplied everything the meat needs.