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To Roast a Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef roasted with butter and served with tomato or eschalot sauce, optional gravy, currant jelly, and force‑meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roast a Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Using a sharp knife, raise the fillet from the inside of the sirloin, leaving the fat on and trimming off the skin.

  2. Lard the fillet all over or roast it plain.

Roast

  1. Baste the fillet with butter while roasting.

  2. Roast in a brisk fire for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until well done.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with tomato sauce, sauce piquante, or eschalot sauce in a tureen.

  2. If desired, serve with brown gravy and currant jelly, garnished with force-meat balls.

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 + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  2. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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, so its tenderness and doneness define the dish.
Butter
Basting fat that adds richness and helps the surface brown while roasting.

The step that matters

Roasting to well done. A long roast at high heat can dry out a lean fillet, and the surface browns faster than the centre cooks. Basting with butter adds moisture and fat to help protect the meat during the long cook.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, tomato, meat):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, tomato, meat. 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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