Name: Fillet of Beef
Ingredients: 1 fillet of beef; Fat (for brushing); Several pieces of salt pork; Butter (for basting); Pepper (to taste); Coarse sea salt (to taste); Mushroom sauce (for serving); Irish potatoes (for serving)

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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Remove the fat from the top of the fillet of beef.
Have your butcher cut the fillet for you.
Brush the top of the fillet with fat.

Roast

Place several pieces of salt pork in the bottom of a baking dish.
Lay the fillet on top of the salt pork.
Baste the fillet with butter, pepper, and salt.
Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for thirty-five minutes.

Serve

Serve with mushroom sauce and Irish potatoes, seasoned with pepper and salt.

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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,232 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

Fillet of beef: Forms the main cut of meat, cooked whole so it stays tender and juicy in the centre.
Salt pork: Lies under the fillet, adding fat and salty flavour as it renders into the dish.
Butter: Basting fat that promotes browning and adds richness to the surface of the beef.

Swap the potato

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

Capsicumfits about as well
Potatothe original
Tomatofits about as well
Onionfits about as well

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