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To Roast a Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef roasted with butter and served with tomato sauce, sauce piquante, eschalot sauce, brown gravy, currant jelly, and optional force‑meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roast a Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the fillet from the sirloin using a sharp knife.

  2. Leave the fat on and trim off the skin.

  3. Lard the fillet if desired, or roast it plain.

Roast

  1. Baste the fillet with butter while roasting.

  2. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce, sauce piquante, or eschalot sauce in a tureen.

  2. If serving with brown gravy and currant jelly, garnish with force‑meat balls.

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

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

  2. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Forms the main meat; its lean, tender muscle is the centre of the dish.
Butter
Used for basting, adding moisture and richness to the surface while it roasts.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, savoury beef.

The step that matters

Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. A fillet is lean and cooks quickly, so overcooking dries it out. Basting with butter helps keep the surface moist and encourages even browning during the roast.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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