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Beef Steaks a LA Francaise

Beef steaks cooked with clarified butter, parsley, cayenne, lemon, and served with fried potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Beef Steaks a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Season the beef slices with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Brush the slices with a little clarified butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until done.

  2. Mix the minced parsley with the fresh butter, cayenne, and a small amount of salt.

  3. Place the mixture in a serving dish and lay the cooked steaks on top.

  4. Garnish with fried potatoes arranged evenly around the meat.

  5. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the butter 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 + 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef sirloin or rump
Provides the meat that is cooked quickly over high heat, giving the main texture of the dish.
Clarified butter
Coats the slices so they brown and stay moist during cooking.
Fresh butter
Melts over the hot steaks to add richness and a smooth, savoury sauce base.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and beef.

The step that matters

Boil the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until done. Thin slices cook through in a few moments, so overcooking dries them out and toughens the meat. A very hot, steady fire sears the outside while keeping the inside tender.

“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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