Skip to main content
Main

Fillet of Beef

A roasted beef fillet cooked with pork slices, vegetables, and a mushroom gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fillet

  1. Have your butcher remove the fat veins and trim the fillet into shape.

  2. Lard the fillet or place it in a pan on several slices of pork.

  3. Cover the top of the fillet with thin strips of pork.

  4. Dredge the fillet with flour, salt, and pepper.

  5. Alternatively, top the fillet with buttered, seasoned crumbs.

  6. Surround the fillet with sliced carrot, turnip, onion, and celery.

Roast

  1. Cook in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. After 10 minutes, pour 1 cup of stock into the pan.

  3. Baste the fillet frequently.

  4. Serve the fillet rare.

Make the gravy

  1. In a saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the melted butter.

  3. Slowly stir in the strained gravy from the pan.

  4. Skim off the fat from the gravy.

  5. Add ½ can of drained mushrooms to the gravy.

  6. Cook the gravy with mushrooms for 10 minutes.

  7. Pour the gravy around the fillet.

  8. Add hot water if needed for more gravy.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Is the main cut that is roasted and served rare, giving the dish its body.
Pork slices
Lard or layer over the beef, adding fat that bastes the meat as it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and carries the flour so it can thicken smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the gravy together with the butter, giving it body.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and texture to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat from the gravy. Fat left on the gravy makes it greasy and can keep it from thickening and tasting clean. Removing it before adding the mushrooms gives a smoother, more balanced sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, flour, pepper, carrot, turnip, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, flour, pepper, carrot, turnip, celery. 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.

More fillet of beef recipes

Braised 3 See all 5 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes