Skip to main content
Main

Filets Mignons En Chaud-froid

Filets Mignons en Chaud-froid is a beef fillet served cold after being lightly cooked, coated in brown sauce and aspic, garnished with truffle and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Filets Mignons En Chaud-froid

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillets

  1. Remove skin and fat from the beef fillet and cut it into slices about ½ inch thick.

  2. Flatten each slice with a wet meat mallet and trim into neat rounds.

  3. Stud each fillet with short strips of larding bacon.

Cook the fillets

  1. Melt butter in a large sauté pan and lightly fry the shallots.

  2. Add the fillets and fry until underdone.

  3. Season, press, and trim neatly.

Coat and chill

  1. Once cold, coat completely with brown chaud-froid sauce and let it set.

  2. Garnish one side with a rosette of truffle and hard-boiled egg white.

  3. Cover with a thin layer of aspic jelly and place on a tray in the ice.

Make the purée and serve

  1. Drain the hageolets, rub through a sieve, and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  2. Mix with a little slightly whipped cream.

  3. Arrange a small bed of mashed potatoes on a silver dish and place the fillets in a row in the center.

  4. Pipe a neat border of purée around each fillet.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Butter + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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; cooking it only until underdone keeps it tender and juicy.
Butter
Fat that gives the shallots and fillets a rich, savoury flavour in the pan.
Shallots
Lightly fried to add a mild, sweet aromatic base to the dish.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a clear, thin glaze that seals and protects the cold fillets.
Cream
Whipped lightly into the bean purée to add moisture and a smooth, airy texture.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets only until underdone. The meat keeps cooking slightly as it cools and sets. Stopping early keeps it tender and juicy rather than dry and firm once chilled.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes