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To Grill a Steak

A method for cooking a rump steak on a gridiron, seasoned with parsley butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 Grill a Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the parsley, then chop it finely.

  2. Mix the chopped parsley with the butter, salt, pepper, and lemon juice to form a small pat.

  3. Dip both sides of the steak in salad oil.

  4. Preheat a gridiron by the fire.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the oiled steak on the gridiron close to the fire to cook quickly.

  2. If the meat is frozen, warm it gradually before cooking to avoid toughness.

  3. Turn the steak occasionally; it will take 10 to 12 minutes to cook.

  4. Once cooked, place the steak on a hot dish without piercing it.

  5. Spread the parsley butter over the steak with a knife.

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

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 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

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes browned and tender when grilled quickly over high heat.
Salad oil
Coats the steak so it browns evenly and does not stick to the gridiron.
Butter
Melts over the hot steak, adding richness and moisture to the surface.

The step that matters

Warming frozen meat gradually. Thawing and warming meat slowly before grilling helps it cook more evenly and reduces the toughness that rapid heating of frozen meat can cause.

“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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