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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef simmered with onions, carrot, cloves, and gravy thickened with flour and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bones from the beef using a sharp knife and skewer it into shape.

Braise

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the bones, onions, carrot, and cloves.

  2. Add the beef and enough beef stock or water to just cover it.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the meat and skim the fat from the gravy.

  2. Mix flour with a little water and add it to the gravy along with the ketchup.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  4. Serve the beef with some gravy on top and the rest in a gravy tureen.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during slow cooking.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness to the stock that forms the gravy.
Ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness that give the gravy a tangy, rounded flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the fat from the gravy. Fat rendered from the beef floats on the cooking liquid and can make the gravy greasy. Removing it before thickening keeps the sauce clean-tasting and smooth.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, beef, flour, ketchup. 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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