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Beefsteaks—a LA Francaise

Beefsteaks cooked in clarified butter, seasoned with parsley, eschalot, cayenne, salt, and white pepper, then pan‑fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Beefsteaks—a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Dip the steak in cold spring water and let it drain for a few minutes.

  2. Place the steak in a dish and pour hot clarified butter over it.

  3. Cover and let it marinate for twelve hours.

  4. Remove the butter and roll the steak with a rolling pin a dozen times, applying pressure.

  5. Hold the steak in front of a clear fire for ten minutes, turning it once or twice.

Cook and season

  1. In a frying pan, add water to a depth of half an inch and fry the steak until browned.

  2. Mix minced parsley, chopped eschalot, cayenne, salt, and white pepper with fresh butter.

  3. Once the steak is browned, rub the mixture on both sides and return it to the pan until cooked to your liking.

  4. If needed, thicken the pan gravy with butter rolled in flour and pour it over the steak before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Is the main component, cooked through browning and gentle heat to set its texture.
Clarified butter
Coats the steak during marinating, adding richness and moisture while carrying flavour into the meat.
Fresh butter
Carries the parsley, eschalot and spices and melts over the browned steak, adding richness.
Flour
Thickens the pan gravy when rolled into butter, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Browning the steak in the water-filled pan. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, dry surface. Keep the water shallow so the steak browns and does not simply boil in the liquid.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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