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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef cooked with salt pork, flour, wine, water, mushrooms, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim off fat and tough skin from the beef.

  2. Lard the beef with salt pork and fry for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the beef from the pot and fry the flour until brown.

  2. Add the white wine, water, mushrooms, and bouquet of herbs to the pot.

Braise and serve

  1. Return the beef to the pot and cook on low heat for 2 hours.

  2. Before serving, remove the bouquet of herbs.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  4. White wine + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Beef tenderloin or sirloin
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, gentle cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the lean beef as it fries.
Flour
Browns in the pot and thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the braising liquid.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat for 2 hours. Gentle, long cooking lets the connective tissue in the beef break down slowly, making it tender. High heat would tighten the muscle fibers and toughen the meat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, flour, white wine, mushroom, celery, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, flour, white wine, mushroom, celery, onion. 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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