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Beef Steaks LA Francaise

Beef steaks served with a butter and parsley sauce, finished with lemon juice 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 LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Season the beef slices with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Brush the slices with clarified butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until done.

  2. Mix minced parsley, fresh butter, cayenne, and a little salt in a dish.

  3. Place the cooked steaks on top of the mixture.

  4. Garnish with fried potatoes arranged around the meat.

  5. Squeeze lemon juice 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.

  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

Sirloin or rump beef
Provides the meat that is cooked quickly over high heat to stay tender.
Clarified butter
Coats the slices so they brown evenly and do not stick during cooking.
Fresh butter
Melts into the warm steaks to add richness and moisture to the dish.

The step that matters

Cook the steaks over a clear, brisk fire until done. Thin slices cook in minutes, so high heat browns the surface quickly while the interior stays juicy. Overcooking dries the meat and toughens its proteins, so watch closely and remove the steaks as soon as they reach the desired doneness.

“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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