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A Fillet of Beef Larded

A fillet of beef larded with oil, onions, herbs, and vinegar, braised in stock and served with a glazed onion garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,294 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

A Fillet of Beef Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Trim the fillet of beef and lard it.

  2. Place the larded fillet in a deep dish.

  3. Pour ½ cup salad oil over the fillet.

  4. Spread sliced onions, bay leaves, and basil over the meat.

  5. Pour ½ cup vinegar over the mixture.

  6. Marinate overnight.

Braise

  1. In a braising pan, combine the marinated fillet and 1 pint of stock.

  2. Cover the fillet with bacon and season with pepper.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. After cooking, pour off the liquid and strain it.

  2. Skim the fat from the liquid and reduce it to a glaze.

  3. Boil 4 Spanish onions until tender, then glaze them.

  4. Serve the beef on a plate with sauce underneath and glazed onions around 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. Basil + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + basiltop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,600 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
Lean, tender cut that becomes juicy and sliceable after long gentle simmering.
Salad oil
Carries fat into the meat during marinating, adding moisture and richness.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps tenderise the surface of the meat.
Bacon
Covers the fillet during braising, adding fat and savoury flavour that drips into the liquid.
Stock
Braising liquid that keeps the fillet moist and becomes the base for the sauce.
Onions
Sweetness and aroma in the marinade, and glazed onions as the garnish.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the braising liquid below a hard boil, so the connective tissue softens slowly without the meat drying out and toughening.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, vinegar, pepper. 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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