Name: Broiled Beef Steak
Ingredients: thick beef steak; butter or fat from steak; coarse sea salt; pepper; French fried potatoes; parsley; slices of lemon; vinegar (optional); lemon juice (optional)

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 ↓

Broiled Beef Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Preheat the broiler until very hot.
Brush the steak with butter or fat from the steak.
Place the steak on the broiler and sear on both sides.
Turn the steak often and broil to your desired doneness.
Prepare a warm platter with butter, pepper, and salt.
Transfer the steak to the warm platter and turn several times to season thoroughly.
Serve with French fried potatoes, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.
For a less expensive cut, sprinkle with vinegar or lemon juice before cooking.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).