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‘Entre-cotes’ of the Gourmets

Beef rib steaks served with a buttery shallot and marrow sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

‘Entre-cotes’ of the Gourmets

4 steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Cut off 4 steaks from the ribs of beef, pare, and lightly beat them.

  2. Season the steaks and roll them in melted butter.

  3. Broil the steaks on a grill for 5 minutes, then turn them.

  4. In the center of each steak, place 1 tablespoon of pounded beef marrow.

Make the marrow sauce

  1. In a saucepan, fry 2 tablespoons of chopped shallots in butter without browning them.

  2. Moisten the shallots with a few spoonfuls of melted butter and let it boil.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in 5 ounces of fresh butter until melted.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar, a pinch of chopped parsley, cayenne, and diced beef marrow.

Serve

  1. Once the steaks are done, place them on a hot dish and pour the sauce underneath.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + shallottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef rib steaks
Provide the lean-to-fat meat that is the main body of the dish.
Beef marrow
Melts into the steak and adds rich, savory fat and flavor.
Fresh butter
Forms the emulsified sauce base, adding richness and a smooth texture.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic flavor to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Remove the sauce from heat before adding the fresh butter. If the sauce is too hot when the butter goes in, the butter can separate and turn greasy instead of forming a smooth, emulsified sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, shallot, vinegar):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, shallot, 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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