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Grenadines of Beef with Mushrooms and Poivrade Sauce

A dish of sliced beef larded with bacon, cooked with brown sauce and sherry, glazed, and served with mushrooms in poivrade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Grenadines of Beef with Mushrooms and Poivrade Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim beef slices to a pear shape, 3.5 inches long and 3 inches wide.

  2. Lard the beef with bacon and place in a sauté pan with brown sauce and sherry.

Cook and glaze

  1. Cook gently for 15 minutes.

  2. Dissolve the glaze in a cup set in boiling water.

  3. Remove the beef, arrange in a circle on a plate, and brush with glaze.

Serve

  1. Fill the center with a pyramid of small mushrooms mixed with poivrade sauce.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Walnut + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Sherry + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Beef + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together460 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 is the tender centre of the plate.
Bacon
Larding adds fat that bastes the lean fillet and keeps it moist during cooking.
Brown sauce
Braising liquid that adds savoury depth and moisture as the beef cooks gently.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic richness to the braising liquid, deepening the flavour of the sauce.
Glaze
Gives a glossy, savoury coating on the beef that sets as it cools.
Small mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a tender texture to the centre of the dish.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 15 minutes. Gentle heat keeps the fillet tender and moist; a hard boil toughens the meat's proteins and drives off moisture, leaving it dry and chewy.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sauce, sherry, mushroom):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sauce, sherry, mushroom. 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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