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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef roasted with a mushroom sauce made from stock, butter, flour, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillet

  1. Trim the fillet of fat and skin.

  2. Lard the fillet neatly.

  3. Place the pork or bacon trimmings in the bottom of a dripping pan.

  4. Pour in 1 cup of beef stock or hot water.

  5. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the fillet.

  6. Place the fillet in the pan.

Roast and baste

  1. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. Baste the fillet frequently.

  3. Add stock as needed.

Make the mushroom sauce

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour until browned.

  3. Slowly add the juice from ½ can of mushrooms and enough hot beef stock to thicken the sauce.

  4. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.

  5. Add ½ can of mushrooms.

  6. Simmer the sauce briefly.

  7. Pour the sauce over the fillet.

  8. 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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
Provides the tender, lean meat that is the main centre of the dish.
Butter
Fat that melts with flour to form the base of the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in butter and mixed with the liquids.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the sauce through their juice and pieces.
Beef stock
Adds savoury beef flavour to the sauce and moisture to the pan.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the flour in the butter until browned. Cooking flour in melted butter first, until it turns golden, removes raw starch taste and builds nutty flavour. Adding liquid too fast or skipping this step can leave lumps and a floury taste in the sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, pepper, butter, flour, mushroom):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Mangofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, pepper, butter, flour, mushroom. 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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