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Steak and Vegetables En Casserole

A broiled steak served with butter, salt, pepper, and garnished with lemon, parsley, tomatoes, and watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 and Vegetables En Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven for at least 5 minutes before cooking.

  2. Ensure the broiling pan and rack are ready.

Broil the steak

  1. Place the steak on the broiler as close to the gas flame as possible without touching it.

  2. Sear the steak on all sides, then turn it using a fork.

  3. Lower the pan about 6 inches and broil slowly for 5 minutes on each side.

Baste and serve

  1. Heat a serving platter and melt 1 tablespoon of butter, adding salt and pepper.

  2. Carefully lift the steak to the platter and baste with the butter mixture.

  3. Garnish with thin slices of lemon, parsley, tomatoes, or watercress.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 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

Steak
Provides the main protein; a thick cut keeps the inside juicy while the outside browns under high heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and when basted over the steak it carries flavor and moisture to the surface.

The step that matters

Searing the steak on all sides. Searing under intense heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building flavor and a crust. Placing the steak too far from the flame or leaving it too long without turning can cause uneven browning or overcooking.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, lemon, parsley, watercress. 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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