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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef cooked slowly in a savory gravy made with onions, carrot, cloves, soy sauce, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bones from the beef using a sharp knife and shape it.

Make the gravy

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the bones, onions, carrot, and cloves.

  2. Add the beef stock or water to just cover the meat and cook slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the meat and skim the fat from the gravy.

  4. Mix flour with a little water and stir it into the gravy along with the soy sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring the gravy to a boil, pour some over the meat, and serve the rest in a gravy boat.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat, which turns tender during long, slow simmering.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and depth of flavour as they soften in the broth.
Soy sauce or walnut catsup
Adds savoury, salty depth and browned umami notes to the gravy.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat from the gravy. Fat that is not removed before the gravy is thickened and reduced will leave it greasy and heavy on the palate, because fat separates from water-based liquid and floats on top.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, flour, sauce, 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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