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To Lard and Braise Fillets of Beef

Larded fillets of beef braised with bacon, bouquet garni, carrots, onion, celery, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

To Lard and Braise Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into small round fillets, about the size of a coffee cup and ¾ inch thick.

  2. Cut the bacon into little strips, 1 inch long and ⅛ inch wide.

  3. Hold each fillet in a clean cloth. Use a larding needle to insert bacon strips into each fillet in regular rows.

Braise

  1. Place the larded fillets in a clean sauté pan.

  2. Add the bouquet garni and the vegetables (carrots, onion, celery) to the pan.

  3. Pour in the stock, ensuring it does not cover the meat. Cook on the fire, basting the fillets continually.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender with gentle moist cooking.
Fat bacon
Lards the fillets, adding fat that melts into the meat and keeps it moist.
Stock
Provides liquid for gentle moist cooking and carries savoury flavour into the meat.
Carrots
Release sweetness and aroma into the stock as they cook.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the stock below the meat level. Leaving the top of the fillets exposed while the bottom braises lets the surface brown and develop flavour, whereas submerging them would simply boil and poach the meat. Basting keeps the exposed surface moist and prevents drying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, thyme, carrot, celery. 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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