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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef cooked slowly with onions, carrot, cloves, and a soy sauce or walnut ketchup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the sirloin or rib using a sharp knife and shape the meat.

  2. Place the bones in a large saucepan with the chopped onions, carrot, and cloves.

Cook

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

  2. Once cooked, remove the meat and skim the fat from the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the flour with a little water and add it to the gravy along with the soy sauce or walnut ketchup.

  2. Bring the gravy to a boil, pour a little 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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef sirloin or rib
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow cooking.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy as they cook down.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and serving spoon.
Soy sauce or walnut ketchup
Adds salty, savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat from the gravy. Fat rises to the surface of slowly cooked stock and can make the gravy greasy if left in. Removing it before thickening gives a cleaner, smoother sauce.

Swap the clove

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

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

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