Name: Beef Steaks a LA Franqaise
Ingredients: sirloin or rump beef, cut into quarter-inch slices; coarse sea salt; black pepper; clarified butter; 1 teaspoon finely minced parsley; 1 large slice fresh butter; a pinch of cayenne pepper; fried potatoes; juice of half a lemon

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 Franqaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

Season the beef slices with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Brush the slices with a little clarified butter.
Broil the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until cooked to your liking.

Make the parsley butter

In a bowl, mix the minced parsley with the fresh butter, cayenne pepper, and a small amount of salt.

Serve

Place the cooked steaks on a serving dish and top with the parsley butter mixture.
Garnish the dish with plenty of fried potatoes arranged around the meat.
For added flavor, 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.

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).
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

Sirloin or rump beef: Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked quickly over high heat.
Clarified butter: Coats the slices so they brown evenly and do not stick under the broiler.
Fresh butter: Melts over the hot steaks to add richness and moisture to the parsley topping.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and beef.

The step that matters

Broiling the steaks. Thin slices cook in minutes, so over-broiling dries out the meat. A clear, brisk fire gives fast surface browning while the interior stays juicy.

“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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Beef Steaks a LA Franqaise