Skip to main content
Main

Fillet, Roasted

A roasted sirloin fillet seasoned with herbs, onion, carrot, and glazed, served with horseradish sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fillet, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from the fillet and trim it neatly.

  2. Tie the fillet in shape.

  3. Cover the fillet with a sheet of white paper spread with beef dripping.

Roast and glaze

  1. Roast the fillet.

  2. Remove the paper to allow the meat to brown.

  3. Brush the meat with thin glaze.

Make gravy and serve

  1. Make gravy in the roasting tin.

  2. Add a little glaze to the gravy.

  3. Garnish the meat with scraped horseradish.

  4. Serve with horseradish sauce in a boat.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + carrottop 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

Beef sirloin fillet
Forms the main cut of meat, which is roasted and served sliced.
Beef dripping
Fat that coats the paper and meat, helping the surface brown and stay moist.
Glaze
Adds a glossy coating and extra flavour to the meat and gravy.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness to the gravy as it cooks in the roasting tin.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy as it cooks in the roasting tin.

The step that matters

Remove the paper to allow the meat to brown. The paper protects the meat while it roasts, but browning needs direct dry heat on the surface. Removing it at the right time lets the Maillard reaction form a rich crust, which the glaze and gravy then build on.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, thyme, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, thyme, carrot. 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 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes