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Chateaubriand of Beef

A thick beef steak broiled and served with a brown butter and stock sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chateaubriand of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim off fat and skin from the beef and flatten it to 2 inches thick.

  2. Sprinkle the beef with coarse sea salt and brush with olive oil.

Cook the beef

  1. Broil the beef over a slow fire for 18 to 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cook the first seven ingredients over a slow fire until the butter is browned.

  2. Add the flour and cook until well browned, then add the brown stock and meat extract.

  3. Bring to a boil and strain the sauce.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice, parsley, and remaining butter bit by bit, and season with salt.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Flour
Thickens the sauce by absorbing the butter and stock as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour when browned, and is whisked in at the end to finish the sauce.
Brown stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savoury depth.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, buttery sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour and butter for the sauce. Cooking the butter and flour until well browned builds a roux with nutty, deep flavour and a colour that thickens the sauce. Stopping too early leaves a pale, raw-tasting sauce, while overcooking can scorch it and make it bitter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, olive, butter, flour, carrot, onion, meat):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, olive, butter, flour, carrot, onion, meat. 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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