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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef stuffed with parsley and bacon, baked with tomatoes and served with watercress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the fillet from the sirloin and carve it to create six slots.

  2. Fill the slots alternately with minced parsley and grated bacon.

Cook

  1. Place the fillet in a Dutch oven over a bright flame for 20 minutes.

  2. Meanwhile, cook the tomatoes in the oven.

Serve

  1. Arrange the beef in the center of a serving dish with the tomatoes around it.

  2. Garnish with a wreath of well-washed watercress.

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 + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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. Tomato + watercresstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together158 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meaty, tender centre.
Grated bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean fillet moist as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and gentle acidity that balances the rich beef and bacon.

The step that matters

Place the fillet in a Dutch oven over a bright flame for 20 minutes. High direct heat browns the outside of the beef through the Maillard reaction, creating deep flavour. The interior only stays tender if the time is controlled, because overcooking tightens the muscle fibres and dries the meat.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, watercress):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, watercress. 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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