Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Fillets of Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the inside of a sirloin or rump into 1‑inch thick slices and trim the slices neatly.
Melt a little butter in a frying pan.
Cook and serve
Season the fillets with salt and pepper.
Fry the fillets lightly until cooked.
Serve with tomato sauce, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.
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.
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Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,923 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,448 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + sorreltop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together419 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sirloin or rump beef
- Forms the main body of the dish; a tender cut is cooked quickly to keep it juicy.
- Butter
- Melted in the pan to coat the fillets and add richness and browning.
The step that matters
Fry the fillets lightly until cooked. Beef fillets are thin and cook quickly, so overcooking dries them out. Frying over a moderate heat until just done keeps the meat tender and juicy.
Swap the sorrel
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, tomato, sauce, anchovy):
- Capersfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Sorrelthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, tomato, sauce, anchovy. 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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