Name: Steak a LA Bordelaise
Ingredients: 3-pound tenderloin steak; ¼ pound beef marrow, chopped fine and blanched; 1 ounce shallot, chopped fine; ½ clove garlic, chopped fine; 1 pint claret; 1 pint brown sauce; Parisienne potatoes for garnish; butter for frying; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

Why it works: Garlic and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,517 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Steak a LA Bordelaise

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the steak

Fry the tenderloin steak in butter over medium heat until cooked to your liking.
Spread the blanched beef marrow over the cooked steak.

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, combine the chopped shallot, garlic, and claret. Cook until reduced by one-third.
Add the brown sauce to the reduced mixture and heat thoroughly.

Serve

Pour the sauce over the steak and garnish with Parisienne potatoes.

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.

Garlic + potatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,517 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,677 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Shallot + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef marrow: Melts into the steak, adding richness and a moist, buttery mouthfeel.
Claret: Reduced with shallot and garlic to concentrate flavour and add acidity to the sauce.
Brown sauce: Forms the body of the sauce, adding savoury depth and a glossy texture.
Shallot: Adds mild sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens in the reducing wine.
Tenderloin steak: Provides the main protein; browning in butter adds savoury flavour to the crust.

The step that matters

Reducing the claret by one-third. Reducing concentrates the wine's flavour and sugars while cooking off harsh alcohol. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin and sharp; reducing too far makes it overly intense or syrupy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, shallot, garlic, sauce, potato, butter):

Capersfits better
Parsleyfits better
Tarragonfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, shallot, garlic, sauce, potato, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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Steak a LA Bordelaise