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Fillets of Beef

Fillets of beef rolled with mushrooms, baked with a mushroom ketchup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut the steak into strips about 3 inches wide.

  2. Beat the strips with a chopper until flat and tender.

  3. Mix the chopped mushrooms with salt, pepper, and butter. Lay the mushroom mixture over the steak strips.

  4. Roll the strips up around the mushroom mixture.

  5. Secure the rolls with a coarse needle and thread or tiny skewers.

Bake and finish the gravy

  1. Place the fillets in a pie dish. Cover the dish with another dish to retain steam.

  2. Bake the fillets in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C). Turn the fillets occasionally.

  3. Thicken the gravy in the baking dish with flour and butter. Add mushroom ketchup to the gravy.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the fillets and cooks into tender meat when beaten and baked.
Fresh mushrooms
Adds moisture and savory, earthy flavor inside the rolls and to the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, melting into the mushrooms and gravy during baking.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy as they cook down.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Covering the dish to retain steam. Covering the baking dish traps moisture so the beef stays juicy and the juices can form the gravy. Without a cover, the surface can dry out before the beef is cooked through.

“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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