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Fillet of Beef

A braised fillet of beef cooked with pork fat, stock, and seasonings, served with a mushroom gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lard the fillet of beef by inserting slices of fat salt pork into it with a knife.

  2. Tie the fillet in shape with twine and place it in a baking pan.

  3. Add pork or suet to the bottom of the pan.

  4. Sprinkle the fillet with pepper and coarse sea salt, then add a large ladle of hot stock or boiling water.

Braise and make gravy

  1. Baste the fillet often while it cooks for about 40 minutes.

  2. To make gravy, combine stock with mushrooms, pepper, and coarse sea salt, then add caramel to brown it.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Is the main cut that is braised, so it becomes tender and juicy in its own juices.
Fat salt pork
Inserted as lardons, it adds fat that keeps the lean fillet moist during cooking.
Pork or suet
Lines the pan bottom, adding fat and flavour to the braising liquid.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savour to the gravy.
Caramel
Gives the gravy a deeper brown colour.

The step that matters

Baste the fillet often while it cooks. Frequent basting spreads the cooking liquid over the surface, keeping it from drying out and helping the outside take on colour while the inside cooks gently.

“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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