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French Broiled Steak

A grilled steak served with parsley butter and optional lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

French Broiled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Grill the steaks

  1. Preheat a grill over hot coals.

  2. Dip the steaks into melted butter.

  3. Broil the steaks on the grill until nearly done.

  4. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Mix chopped parsley with softened butter until creamy.

  2. Pour the parsley butter into the center of a serving dish.

  3. Dip each steak into the butter, turning them over.

  4. Arrange the steaks around the dish and squeeze lemon juice over if desired.

  5. Serve very hot.

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 steaks
Provide the main protein, which firms and browns as it cooks over the grill.
Melted butter
Adds moisture and richness, carrying flavor onto the surface of the steaks.
Softened butter
Forms a creamy base for the parsley, adding fat and a smooth, spreadable texture.

The step that matters

Broil the steaks on the grill until nearly done. Steak continues to cook briefly after leaving the heat, so pulling it just short of the target doneness keeps it juicy and prevents it becoming dry and tough.

“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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