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Fillet of Beef-Steak with Fine Herbs

A fillet steak seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, parsley, and lemon juice or vinegar, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Fillet of Beef-Steak with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fillet of beef into steaks.

  2. Beat the steaks flat.

  3. Soak the steaks in melted butter, salt, and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steaks over high heat until cooked.

  2. Serve the steaks on a piece of cold butter mixed with finely chopped parsley and a little lemon juice or vinegar.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. 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

Fillet of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is cooked and eaten.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture so the steaks stay juicy and carry flavour during cooking.
Cold butter
Melts slowly over the hot steak, adding a rich, glossy sauce-like layer.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma that brightens the rich butter.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Broil the steaks over high heat until cooked. High heat browns the surface quickly while the interior is still cooking. Because the steaks are thin and fast-cooking, overcooking dries them out, so watching closely for doneness matters.

“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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