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Beef Steaks with Potatoes

Beef steaks served with buttered parsley, lemon, and fried potatoes.

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 ↓

Beef Steaks with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut thin slices from the rump of beef.

  2. Beat and season the slices with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Dip the slices in melted butter to prevent the gravy from dropping out while broiling.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the beef until done.

  2. Serve the beef on a mixture of finely-chopped parsley, a little butter, pepper, salt, and lemon underneath.

  3. Fry the potatoes until they are a fine brown color and arrange them around the dish.

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

Rump of beef
Forms the main meat of the dish, cooked by broiling for a tender, savory centre.
Melted butter
Coats the slices so they keep their juices and gravy during broiling, adding richness.
Potatoes
Fried until browned, adding crisp golden texture and a starchy side to the beef.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity that cuts the richness of the beef and butter.

The step that matters

Dip the slices in melted butter before broiling. Butter coats the surface so the meat's juices and gravy stay in rather than dripping out under the heat. Without it, the slices can dry out and lose flavour.

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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