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Beef Steaks a LA Franqaise

Beef steaks served with a parsley‑butter sauce, cayenne, lemon, and 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 Franqaise

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.

  3. Broil the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until done.

Make the parsley butter

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

  2. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the butter before adding the meat.

Serve

  1. Fry the sliced potatoes until they are a fine brown and arrange them evenly around the meat.

  2. Place the mixture in a serving dish, lay the steaks on top, and garnish with fried potatoes.

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. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or rump beef
Provides the meat that is seared under high heat, developing browned flavour on the surface.
Clarified butter
Coats the slices so they brown evenly and resist sticking under the broiler.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, melting base for the parsley sauce.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter.
Potatoes
Fry to a crisp brown edge, adding contrasting texture beside the meat.

The step that matters

Broil the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until done. A clear, very hot fire sears the surface quickly, browning the meat while the inside stays juicy. Thin slices overcook fast, so they need close watching.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, butter, parsley, lemon):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, parsley, lemon. 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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