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Fillet of Beef with Mushrooms

A fillet of beef sliced, seasoned, browned, and served with a mushroom ketchup and Madeira sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Fillet of Beef with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the fillet into slices 1 inch thick and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Soak the slices in melted butter for 1 hour in a clean saucepan.

  3. Heat over a brisk fire; brown one side, then turn and brown the other without scorching.

  4. Keep the browned fillet warm on a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. In the remaining butter, sprinkle the flour and let it brown carefully without scorching.

  2. Gradually add boiling water while stirring to avoid lumps.

  3. Stir in mushroom ketchup and Madeira wine if desired.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fillet and serve.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 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. Pepper + mushroomtop 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

Fillet of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is browned and served.
Melted butter
Carries heat evenly during browning and adds richness to the meat and sauce.
Dry flour
Browned in the butter and then whisked with water, it thickens the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the sauce.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the butter. Flour left too long in hot butter scorches and turns bitter, while under-browned flour leaves the sauce tasting raw. Stirring steadily over moderate heat gives an even, nutty colour and prevents lumps when the water is added.

“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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