Name: To Frizzle Beef
Ingredients: 1 pound thinly sliced beef; ½ cup warm water; 1 egg-sized piece of butter; 2 eggs; 3 tablespoons cream; flour for dredging; parsley, to taste; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste

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 ↓

To Frizzle Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

Place the thinly sliced beef in a skillet and pour warm water over it.
Stir the beef and then drain off the water.
Add the butter to the skillet and heat over medium.

Cook

In a bowl, beat the eggs with the cream.
Dredge the beef with flour, then pour the egg and cream mixture over it.
Season with parsley, pepper, and salt to taste.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Beef: Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, thinly sliced texture.
Eggs: Bind with the cream to coat the beef and set into a soft, custardy layer.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture to the egg mixture, keeping it tender as it sets.
Flour: Dredging coats the beef, helping the egg mixture cling and brown lightly.
Butter: Adds fat for frying, contributing flavor and browning to the skillet.

Swap the parsley

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

Nutmegfits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Parsleythe original
Turmericfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, butter, cream, flour, pepper. 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.