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Beef Steaks À LA Française

Beef Steaks à la Française are sirloin or rump steaks seasoned, broiled, and served with parsley‑cayenne butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Steaks À LA Française

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove skin from the sirloin and cut it into quarter-inch thick slices.

  2. If sirloin is unavailable, use part of the rump.

  3. Season the steaks with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Brush the steaks with a little clarified butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steaks over a clear, brisk fire.

  2. Mix the minced parsley with fresh butter and a pinch of cayenne.

  3. Serve the steaks topped with the parsley butter.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or rump steak
Forms the main body of the dish and sets its beefy, chewy texture when broiled.
Clarified butter
Coats the steaks so they brown evenly and resist sticking under high heat.
Fresh butter
Melts into the parsley mixture to add richness and a smooth, spreadable topping.

The step that matters

Broiling over a brisk fire. Steaks need intense, direct heat so the surface browns quickly through Maillard reactions while the interior stays juicy. Too little heat leaves them grey and steamed, and overcooking dries the meat.

“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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