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Fillets of Beef a LA Colbert

Beef fillets sautéed with shallots, wine, espagnole sauce, butter, lemon, parsley, and served with fried potatoes and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef a LA Colbert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim and pare the fillet.

  2. Cut it into about eight slices.

  3. Flatten them slightly.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Sear the fillets

  1. Melt 2 oz of butter in a sauté pan. Add the oil.

  2. When hot, add the fillets. Fry quickly on both sides until rare.

  3. Remove the fillets to a plate.

  4. Pour off most of the fat.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the chopped shallots to the pan. Fry until soft but not browned.

  2. Add the wine and sauce. Stir. Let boil for a few minutes.

  3. Gradually add 1 oz of butter.

  4. Season with cayenne or paprika. Add a little salt if needed.

  5. Add lemon juice and chopped parsley.

  6. Return the fillets to the sauce. Mix well without boiling again.

Serve

  1. Arrange the fillets in a circle on a hot dish. Fill the center with small fried potatoes. Surround with fried bread slices.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Main protein; quick searing keeps the slices tender and rare inside.
Espagnole sauce
Forms the rich, thick brown sauce that coats the fillets.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the sauce when added gradually.
Shallots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the pan sauce.
Marsala or sherry wine
Adds acidity and concentrated flavour as it reduces in the sauce.

The step that matters

Return the fillets to the sauce without boiling. Reboiling the sauce after the fillets return toughens the meat and can break the sauce, so the fillets should only be warmed through gently.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sauce, potato, butter, shallot, sherry, parsley):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sauce, potato, butter, shallot, sherry, 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.

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