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To Roast a Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef roasted with butter, served with tomato sauce, sauce piquante, brown gravy, currant jelly, and optional forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roast a Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fillet from the inside of the sirloin using a sharp knife, leaving the fat on and trimming off the skin.

  2. Lard the fillet all over or roast it plain.

Roast

  1. Baste the fillet with butter while roasting.

  2. Roast in a brisk fire for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot with tomato sauce, sauce piquante, brown gravy, and currant jelly.

  2. Garnish with forcemeat balls if desired.

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. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Butter + tomatotop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Beef + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,464 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 body of the dish, cooking to a tender, juicy centre when roasted.
Butter
Basting adds moisture and richness and helps the surface brown during roasting.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, savoury beef.

The step that matters

Roasting in a brisk fire. Too low a heat slowly dries and greys the meat before a browned crust forms, while too high a heat can scorch the outside before the centre is cooked. Steady, strong heat with regular basting gives a browned exterior and an evenly cooked interior.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, tomato):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, tomato. 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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