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Fillet of Beef Bbaised

A rolled piece of beef braised on slices of ham with vegetables, sweet herbs and spices, then browned and served with its sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Fillet of Beef Bbaised

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Strew the bottom of a stewpan with slices of ham and a small amount of gravy to prevent burning.

  3. Place the rolled beef on top of the ham.

  4. Cover the beef with chopped carrots, celery, button onions, pickled chili, sliced gherkin, sweet herbs, salt, mace, and allspice.

Braise and serve

  1. Simmer until the beef is tender.

  2. Brown the beef before the fire or with a salamander.

  3. Skim and season the sauce.

  4. Serve the meat, sauce, and vegetables together in the same dish.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Inside sirloin of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Slices of ham
Lines the pan to add savory flavor and help keep the beef from scorching.
Chopped carrots
Release sweetness and body into the braising liquid as they cook.
Button onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Pickled chili
Adds sharp acidity and heat that brighten the rich braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beef is tender. Tough collagen in sirloin only breaks down into gelatin with long, gentle heat. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and clouds the sauce, so keep the liquid at a slow simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, carrot, celery, onion, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, celery, onion, allspice. 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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