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Fillet of Beef

A roasted beef tenderloin marinated with lemon, onion, carrot, and seasoned, served with a mushroom and truffle sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

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 the beef

  1. Lard the beef and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Rub the beef with olive oil and pour the juice of 1 lemon over it.

  3. Add the sliced carrot, remaining lemon, and chopped onion; let it marinate for several hours.

Bake the beef

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the beef from the marinate and place it in a pan with stock and 1 teaspoon of flour.

  3. Bake for 1¼ hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 2 cups of stock and 3 teaspoons of browned flour; cook for about 15 minutes.

  3. Add the sliced mushrooms, truffles, and sherry to the sauce.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  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 tenderloin
Forms the main cut of meat that is larded, marinated, and baked.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce as it cooks.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the sauce.
Truffles
Add a concentrated, aromatic earthy flavour to the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce roux for about 15 minutes. Flour must cook long enough in fat and liquid to thicken smoothly and lose its raw taste. Stirring keeps it from lumping or scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, mushroom, flour, truffle, sherry, carrot. 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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