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Steaks, and a Pie

A steak seasoned with coarse sea salt, topped with parsley butter, served with fried potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Steaks, and a Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a roaring fire and add some coals until it is red-hot for a clear, smokeless fire.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the steak directly on the fire, turning it frequently until done to your preference.

  2. Sprinkle the steak with coarse sea salt just before serving.

  3. Mix the minced parsley with the butter and place it on the steak to melt before serving.

  4. Serve with fried potatoes.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  2. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + fried potatotop 40% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Beef + fried potatotop 50% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Forms the main dish; direct high heat browns the surface while the interior cooks.
Butter
Melts over the hot steak, adding richness and moisture to the surface.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma to the melting butter.

The step that matters

Cook the steak directly on the fire, turning frequently. Frequent turning over intense heat helps the surface brown evenly without burning, while the interior cooks gradually. Starting with a red-hot, smokeless fire keeps the flavour clean and the crust even.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Pepperfits about as well
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, fried potato. 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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