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Roast Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef roasted with vegetables, bacon, and sherry, finished with a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Roast Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the braise

  1. Melt the butter or dripping in a stewpan.

  2. Add the sliced carrot, onion, celery, turnip, herbs, sherry, ketchup, and spices.

  3. Tie the fillet neatly with tape and place it on top of the vegetables.

  4. Place the bacon slices on top of the meat.

  5. Cover the pan and fry everything together for about 15 minutes.

  6. Pour the stock or gravy into the pan beside the beef.

Braise and finish

  1. Braise the meat gently for about 2.5 hours, basting it with the liquid.

  2. Once cooked, remove the fillet and tapes, and place it on a hot dish.

  3. Lift the vegetables out of the pan.

  4. Boil the gravy rapidly until it reduces to a glazy state.

  5. Brush the meat with the gravy and pour the remaining gravy around it.

  6. Garnish with fried potato-olives and mushrooms.

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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Fillet of beef
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during slow braising.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for frying the vegetables and carries flavour into the pan.
Fat bacon
Melts slowly over the meat, adding moisture and savoury fat as it braises.
Stock or gravy
Provides the braising liquid that keeps the meat moist and forms the final sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid and the reduced gravy.
Onion
Softens and sweetens during frying, flavouring the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy rapidly until it reduces to a glazy state. Rapid boiling evaporates water and concentrates the gravy's flavour and body, so it can coat the meat as a glaze instead of thinning out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, carrot, celery, turnip, sherry, ketchup, beef):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, carrot, celery, turnip, sherry, ketchup, beef. 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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