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Fillets of Beef

Fillets of beef are sliced sirloin or rump, lightly fried and served with tomato sauce, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the inside of a sirloin or rump into slices ½ inch thick.

  2. Trim the slices neatly.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt a little butter in a sauté or frying pan.

  2. Season the fillets with salt.

  3. Fry the fillets lightly.

  4. Serve with tomato sauce, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Tomato + sorreltop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Beef + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together451 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or rump beef
Provides the tender meat that forms the fillets, cooked quickly to stay juicy.
Butter
Melts in the pan to add fat and richness and help the fillets brown.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets lightly. Beef slices are thin and cook fast, so high heat for a short time browns the surface while keeping the inside tender. Overcooking dries out the meat and makes it tough.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, tomato, sauce, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

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