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Porterhouse Steak with Broiled Tomatoes
Procure a nice, tender porterhouse steak one and a quarter inches thick, lightly flatten all around, season all over with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, then rub with a tablespoon oil, place on a broiler and broil on a brisk fire for twelve minutes on each side. Remove, dress on hot dish, arrange broiled tomatoes around, spread a little butter over steak and serve.
A straightforward grilled steak, but the timing belongs to a coal range and a cut of beef sold rather differently than today. Read the clock instruction before anything else.
- The timing is the problemTwelve minutes a side on a 1¼-inch steak means twenty-four minutes of direct heat, which will take the meat well past well-done. On a hot grill or under a preheated broiler, that thickness wants roughly 4 to 5 minutes a side for rare to medium-rare, 6 for medium. Pull it at 125-130F internal for medium-rare and let it carry over.
- "Broiler" and "brisk fire"In this period a broiler was commonly a hinged wire gridiron held over live coals in the range rather than a heating element above the meat. A brisk fire is a hot one: a charcoal grill at high heat, a cast-iron pan smoking, or an oven broiler preheated ten minutes with the rack close to the element.
- The cutA porterhouse is the rear end of the short loin, with a strip steak on one side of the bone and a sizeable piece of tenderloin on the other. Butchers today often cut them thicker, 1½ to 2 inches, which changes the timing again; go by internal temperature rather than the clock. At 1¼ inches a porterhouse serves two.
- Flattening"lightly flatten all around" most likely means evening the steak to a uniform thickness with the flat of a cleaver or knife rather than pounding it tender. With a well-marbled porterhouse it is optional, though it does help the two muscles cook at a similar rate.
- Seasoning and oilA teaspoon of salt on a single steak is generous but correct for a piece this size. Salt at least forty minutes ahead, or immediately before cooking; salting five or ten minutes out draws moisture to the surface and hinders browning.
- Rest before servingThe original goes straight from broiler to hot dish. Give it five to eight minutes on a warm plate first; the butter finish the recipe calls for will melt over it in that time and serve as the sauce.
- The tomatoesThe recipe gives no method for them. Broiled tomatoes of this period were generally halved, seasoned and set under the same fire until blistered and collapsing, roughly 6 to 8 minutes. They can share the grill with the steak and will be ready by the time it has rested.
The porterhouse takes its name from the porter houses of early nineteenth-century American cities, taverns that sold porter and dark beer alongside plain hot food; the association of the cut with those establishments is traditional rather than documented to a single house, and several competing origin stories circulate. By the time this book appeared, steak broiled over a brisk fire and finished with a lump of butter was a familiar restaurant treatment. What dates the entry is not the method but the clock: gridirons sat at whatever height the fire allowed, and the times given err long.