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LA Parisienne

A beef fillet larded with pork, cooked with aromatics, wine, consommé, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,669 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-ethylphenol, which smells must. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the top of the beef fillet.

  2. Lard the surface of the beef with strips of larding pork.

  3. Combine the onion, thyme, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves, parsley roots, and salt in a frying pan.

  4. Moisten the aromatics with white wine and consommé.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the beef on top of the aromatics.

  2. Add small pieces of butter on the beef and simmer gently for about 40 minutes.

  3. Strain the cooking liquid and pour it over the fillet before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,669 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,210 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

  5. White wine + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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, cooking gently to stay tender and juicy.
Larding pork
Adds fat that bastes the lean fillet and keeps its surface moist as it simmers.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that help build the flavour of the cooking liquid.
Consommé
Provides savoury liquid that becomes the sauce, adding depth and moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enriches the cooking liquid and gives a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about 40 minutes. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer, rather than a hard boil, cooks the beef evenly and keeps the meat tender instead of tough and dry.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, onion, thyme, parsley, white wine, butter):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicbetter flavor fit
  3. Pepperbetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, onion, thyme, parsley, white wine, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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