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Filets Mignons Larded

Beef fillets larded with bacon, herbs, and vegetables, then braised and served with cucumber or chicory.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Filets Mignons Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Shape the fillets into rounds and lard them at the top.

Braise

  1. In a saucepan, combine bacon, carrots, onions, cloves, parsley, chives, thyme, and bay leaf.

  2. Add the fillets to the saucepan and cover with two sheets of buttered paper.

  3. Pour in 1 tablespoon of stock and place on the heat.

  4. After one hour, place some heat on the lid to glaze the fillets.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, drain and serve with cucumber, chicory, or your preferred dressing.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillets of beef
Main protein; cooked gently so it stays tender and juicy.
Slices of bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the beef as it cooks.
Carrots
Aromatic base that adds subtle sweetness to the braising liquid.
Onions
Aromatic base that adds savory depth and sweetness as they soften.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the buttered paper keep moisture in.

The step that matters

Gentle heat under the lid. Too much heat toughens the proteins in the beef and dries the surface, so the fillets stay tender only when the heat is kept low and steady.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, parsley, chive, thyme, butter. 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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