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Fillets of Beef

Sliced beef fillets sautéed in butter and served with tomato sauce, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 1 inch thick and trim them neatly.

  2. Melt a little butter in a frying pan.

  3. Season the fillets with coarse sea salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the fillets lightly until cooked to your preference.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce, 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. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or rump beef
Forms the main body of the dish, with the slices cooking through as the meat's texture sets.
Butter
Melted in the pan to conduct heat and add richness to the frying surface.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets lightly until cooked to your preference. Beef fillets are tender and cook quickly, so overcooking dries out the meat. Watching the color and firmness and removing the slices at the desired doneness keeps them juicy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Onionfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, 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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