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Fillet of Beef, a LA Macedoine

A braised beef fillet served with a macedoine of vegetables and a Bechamel or Allemande sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef, a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the fillet

  1. Lard and prepare the fillet of beef.

  2. Moisten the fillet with 1 cup of good stock.

  3. Braise the fillet in the same manner as before.

  4. Once done, glaze the fillet and place it on a serving dish.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with groups of prepared carrots, turnips, French beans, asparagus heads, and cauliflower buds.

  2. Each vegetable should be separately prepared and tossed in a little Bechamel or Allemande sauce before garnishing.

  3. Serve with the clarified and reduced braise sauce around the fillet.

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. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Asparagus + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together163 recipes

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

  4. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
The main protein, cooked gently in liquid so it stays moist and tender.
Good stock
Moist cooking liquid that braises the fillet and later reduces into the serving sauce.
Bechamel or allemande sauce
Creamy white sauce that coats the vegetables, adding richness and fat.

The step that matters

Braising the fillet. Gentle, moist heat keeps the meat juicy and tender. If the liquid boils hard or the fillet cooks too long, the outer layer dries and toughens.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, beans, asparagus, cauliflower, sauce):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, beans, asparagus, cauliflower, sauce. 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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