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Fillets of Beef a LA Princess Louise

A dish of beef fillets topped with bacon, anchovy butter, oysters, and served over haricot bean purée with a velouté tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef a LA Princess Louise

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and cook the fillets

  1. Lard the fillets of beef with bacon.

  2. Sauté the fillets in butter for a few minutes.

  3. Place the fillets in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for ten minutes.

Glaze and assemble

  1. Remove from the oven and brush with glaze.

  2. Top each fillet with a small piece of anchovy butter and an oyster.

  3. Sprinkle with more glaze and serve on a purée of haricot beans.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine velouté sauce, tomato pulp, extract of meat, oyster liquor, and lemon juice. Mix well and strain through a tamis.

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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Beef + beanstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fillets of beef
Provide the tender meat that is the main body of the dish.
Bacon
Lardons add fat that bastes the lean fillet and adds savoury flavour as it cooks.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and a soft texture on top of each fillet.
Anchovy butter
Adds salty, savoury richness that melts over the hot fillet.
Velouté sauce
Forms the body of the sauce, giving it a smooth, thickened texture.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity and fruity flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Place the fillets in a hot oven for ten minutes. Searing and a short, hot roast brown the surface while keeping the centre tender. Cooking too long dries out lean beef and toughens the proteins.

“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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