Name: Steak Chateaubriand
Ingredients: 3-pound tenderloin steak; ¼ pound chopped beef marrow; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley; Juice of 1 lemon; Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); Saratoga chips for garnish

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Steak Chateaubriand

Ingredients

3-pound tenderloin steak
¼ pound chopped beef marrow
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
Saratoga chips for garnish

Directions

Cook the steak

Broil the tenderloin steak to medium doneness and place it on a hot serving dish.
Blanch the chopped beef marrow in salted water, then spread it over the steak.

Finish and serve

Melt the butter, add the chopped parsley and lemon juice, and pour the mixture over the steak.
Serve garnished with Saratoga chips.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,866 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Tenderloin steak: Is the main cut of meat, cooked by broiling to medium doneness.
Beef marrow: Melts into the hot steak, adding richness and moisture to the meat.
Butter: Melted and poured over the steak, adding fat, richness and a smooth sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich marrow and butter.

The step that matters

Blanch the beef marrow. Blanching in salted water partly firms the marrow and seasons it before it is spread on the hot steak. Ensuring it is heated and not overcooked keeps its texture spreadable rather than greasy or broken.

“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 Chateaubriand