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Fillet of Beef

A roasted beef fillet wrapped in pork and vegetables, basted with stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

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

  2. If not larding, place the fillet in a pan on several slices of pork.

  3. Cover the top with thin strips of pork, dredge with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper, or use buttered, seasoned crumbs.

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

Roast and serve

  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 and baste frequently.

  3. Serve the fillet rare.

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

Beef fillet
Is the main cut; cooking it gently keeps it tender and juicy when served rare.
Pork slices
Cover the lean beef, adding fat and moisture as they render during roasting.
Flour
Dries the surface of the coating so it can brown in the hot oven.
Stock
Added to the pan to create moisture and flavour for basting the fillet.

The step that matters

Basting with stock after 10 minutes. Adding stock partway through keeps the pan juices from burning and moistens the surface, while frequent basting helps the fillet stay juicy and evenly browned.

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.

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