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To Make Tender a Tough Steak

A steak marinated in vinegar and olive oil, then cooked and seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, lemon, and parsley.

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 ↓

To Make Tender a Tough Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. In a deep platter, combine vinegar and olive oil.

  2. Place the steak in the mixture for several hours, turning it every hour.

  3. For breakfast, prepare the steak the night before and turn it over before bed, adding more vinegar and oil if absorbed.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the steak without wiping it, then season with butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Garnish with slices of lemon and parsley.

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

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

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

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

  4. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Acid that gently loosens the meat's surface proteins, helping it feel more tender.
Olive oil
Fat that carries the flavor of the marinade and coats the steak evenly.
Steak
The main protein, which softens during the long soak before cooking.
Butter
Fat that adds richness and helps the steak brown and taste savory.

The step that matters

Cook the steak without wiping it. Residual marinade on the surface adds flavor and helps browning. Wiping it off removes both the seasoning and the moisture that promotes a good sear.

“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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