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Fillet Steaks

Sliced sirloin or rump seasoned and broiled or pan‑fried, served with sauce or maitre d’hotel 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 ↓

Fillet Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the undercut of sirloin or rump and cut into slices ½ inch thick.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt and black pepper, and let sit for 1 hour.

  3. Alternatively, marinate the slices in a little vinegar, pepper, and salt for 1-2 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the steaks for about 6 minutes, serving with sauce or a piece of maitre d’hotel butter on each.

  2. Heat a little butter in a frying pan and cook the steaks slowly, turning frequently.

  3. When done, pour over rich thick gravy, tomato sauce, or sauce piquante, and serve hot.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Undercut of sirloin or rump
Main cut of meat that becomes the steak, cooked tender and juicy when sliced thin.
Butter
Fat for pan cooking that adds richness and promotes browning on the steak surface.
Vinegar
Acidic marinade that can tenderize the meat surface and add a sharp flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the steaks slowly, turning frequently. Cooking slowly and turning often lets heat reach the centre gently, so the outside does not burn before the inside is done. Frequent turning also promotes even browning and keeps the juices distributed for a more tender result.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, parsley, anchovy, vinegar. 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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