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Beefsteak with Fine Herbs

Thin slices of beef seasoned with oil, salt, pepper, and herbs, broiled rare and served with lemon juice and cucumber garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Beefsteak with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fillet of beef into thin slices and flatten them.

  2. Soak the slices in a mixture of oil, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the beef over high heat until very rare.

  2. Serve on a piece of butter with parsley and lemon juice or verjuice.

  3. Garnish with small cucumbers.

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 + lemontop 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. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 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

Fillet of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked briefly to stay tender and rare.
Butter
Sits under the hot beef, adding richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel.
Lemon juice or verjuice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich beef and butter.
Oil
Coats the flattened slices, carrying seasoning and helping them brown lightly under heat.

The step that matters

Broil until very rare. Thin slices cook in moments under high heat, so they can go from rare to overcooked quickly. Watching closely keeps the meat tender and juicy, since proteins toughen and dry as their internal temperature rises.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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