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Steak a LA Duchesse

A steak coated in a breadcrumb and herb mixture, baked with a sauce of egg, oil, wine, and mustard, served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Steak a LA Duchesse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Trim the steak into a fair oval or round shape, cutting off at least ¼ pound of trimmings.

  2. Mince the trimmings twice using a mincing machine.

  3. Mix the minced trimmings with breadcrumbs, chopped onion, herbs, salt, and pepper.

  4. In a brazing pan, melt butter and brown the mixture well, stirring frequently.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat a saucepan and combine the egg, salad oil, white wine or vinegar, and mustard or horseradish; beat well and heat without boiling.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steak until cooked to your preference, then place it on a hot dish.

  2. Surround the steak with the browned mince and serve with mashed potatoes as an outer wall.

  3. Just before serving, pour the sauce gently onto the center of the steak.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak trimmings
Minced and browned, they form the savory filling that surrounds the steak.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices and fat from the mince, helping it hold together while browning.
Egg
Emulsifies with the oil to thicken the warm sauce into a smooth, cohesive texture.
Butter
Fat for browning the mince, adding richness and toasted flavour to the filling.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that deepens as it cooks in the browning mince.

The step that matters

Heating the sauce without boiling. The egg in the sauce thickens with gentle heat, but boiling can curdle it into grainy lumps. Heat it slowly and keep it warm but not bubbling.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, sage, pepper, butter, egg, white wine, potato):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, sage, pepper, butter, egg, white wine, potato. 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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