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Fjllet of Beef with Sauce Hollandaise

Fillet of beef served with hollandaise sauce and potato balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley 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 ↓

Fjllet of Beef with Sauce Hollandaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the fillet into slices nearly 1 inch thick.

  2. Grease a gridiron and broil the beef slices over a clear fire for 8 minutes, turning constantly.

Make the hollandaise sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the egg yolks and cold water until well mixed.

  2. Add the cream, lemon juice, butter, pepper, and salt to the saucepan.

  3. Place the saucepan in a larger pan of boiling water or over a very low fire, whisking until the butter melts and the sauce froths.

Prepare the potato balls

  1. For the potato balls, cut the potatoes with a French vegetable cutter into balls.

  2. Dry the potato balls with a towel, then fry them in hot lard for 4 minutes.

  3. Drain the potato balls and place them around the beef on the dish.

Serve

  1. Arrange the beef slices in a circle on a dish, overlapping the ends.

  2. Pour the sauce over the beef and garnish with chopped parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 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

Fillet of beef
Forms the main protein, browning on the outside while staying tender inside under high heat.
Egg yolks
Emulsify with the butter and set gently to give the hollandaise its thick, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, emulsifying into the yolks to give the sauce its smooth body.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.
Potatoes
Provide starch that crisps and browns in hot fat while staying soft inside.

The step that matters

Whisking the hollandaise over gentle heat. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot, and the butter can separate. Gentle, constant whisking over low heat or barely simmering water lets the yolks thicken into a smooth emulsion.

“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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