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Veal Steak

A veal steak cooked over coals, finished in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper, topped with grated cracker and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the steak

  1. Beat the veal steak until tender.

Grill and butter

  1. Place the steak on a grill over hot coals and cover with a tin plate to prevent dryness.

  2. Turn the steak until well done.

  3. Press the steak with a knife and fork into a pan of hot melted butter.

  4. Let the steak absorb the butter, then place it on a dish.

  5. Season generously with salt and pepper, and pour more melted butter over it.

Finish and serve

  1. Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes, but do not let the butter fry.

  2. Sift grated cracker over the steak and garnish with parsley before serving hot.

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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steak
Forms the main body of the dish; beating it first tenderises the meat.
Hot melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries flavour into the meat.
Grated cracker
Sprinkled on top to add a light, crisp, toasted coating.

The step that matters

Do not let the butter fry in the oven. Once the butter starts to fry, it can scorch and turn bitter and greasy, spoiling the flavour. Keeping the heat gentle lets the butter stay rich and coat the steak evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, 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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