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Fillet of Beef À LA Bearnaise

A fillet of beef cooked and served with hot Bearnaise sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef À LA Bearnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into slices about ¾ inch thick.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with salt, pepper, and flour.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the slices over a bright fire for 7 minutes.

  2. Place the slices on a warm dish.

  3. Pour hot Bearnaise sauce around the meat.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Tenderloin of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked quickly so it stays tender inside.
Flour
Dusted on the slices to help form a light surface that browns during broiling.
Bearnaise sauce
Adds rich, buttery fat and a tangy, herbal flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Broil over a bright fire for 7 minutes. Searing at high heat browns the surface quickly while the centre stays rare. Too long and the tenderloin dries out and toughens, since lean beef loses moisture as its proteins tighten.

“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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