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Fillet of Beef, Boasted and Larded

A fillet of beef larded and roasted on a spit, served with a gravy-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef, Boasted and Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the fillet and lard it finely.

  2. Soak the fillet for 12 hours in a marinade made of oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg, sweet herbs, bay leaf, and sliced onion.

  3. Remove the fillet from the marinade and place it on the spit before a hot fire.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until it is not overdone, then take it off the spit with the gravy.

  2. Serve with a sauce made from the gravy, a little vinegar, shallots, salt, and pepper.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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, cooked whole so it stays tender and juicy inside.
Lard (in the method)
Adds fat that melts during cooking, keeping the lean fillet moist.
Oil
Carries the marinade seasonings and helps keep the surface from drying.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the marinade as the fillet soaks.
Bay leaf
Adds a subtle aromatic herbal flavour during the long marinating.

The step that matters

Cook until it is not overdone. Beef fillet is lean and dries out and toughens quickly past the desired doneness, so it should be checked as it cooks and removed from the heat in time.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, onion. 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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