Skip to main content
Main

Fillets of Beef a LA Vicomtesse

A dish of beef fillet rounds larded with bacon, topped with bacon slices, mushrooms, and clear brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and shallot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef a LA Vicomtesse

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the fillet into neat rounds 1 inch thick.

  2. Lard the rounds.

Cook

  1. Fry the fillets quickly in a little butter with pepper, salt, and chopped shallot on the unlarded side for three minutes.

  2. Place the pan under the grill or in the oven to brown the tops.

  3. Cut the bacon into thin rounds the same size as the fillets. Fry the bacon lightly.

Dish and serve

  1. Dish the fillets and slices of bacon alternately in a circle.

  2. Put the stewed mushrooms in the center.

  3. Sprinkle hard-boiled yolk of eggs over them.

  4. Pour the clear sauce around.

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. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef fillet
Forms the main meat, cooked quickly so the outside browns while the centre stays tender.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury flavour to the centre of the dish.
Lean bacon
Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat that complements the lean beef.
Clear brown sauce
Provides moisture and rich savoury flavour around the dish.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning on the fillets.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets quickly. Searing over high heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction while keeping the interior tender. Overcooking toughens the lean beef and dries it out.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mushroom, sauce, butter, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes