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Fillet of Beef Larded

A fillet of rump beef larded with bacon, roasted and served with a sauce of stock, lemon pickle, ketchup, celery, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef Larded

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Take the fillet or piece of rump beef and lard it with bacon.

  3. Shape it like a fillet of veal and cover it with bards of fat bacon.

Roast and glaze

  1. Roast in the oven until nearly done.

  2. Remove the paper and allow the larding to turn a light brown color.

  3. Glaze the top of the beef.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine cullis, lemon pickle, ketchup, scalded celery heads, and button onions.

  2. Stew the sauce until tender and serve it around the beef.

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 + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Ketchup + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Larding fat that bastes the lean beef from within and keeps it moist as it roasts.
Bards of fat bacon
Outer fat wrap that shields the beef surface and keeps it from drying out in the oven.
Cullis or beef stock
Savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the sauce.
Lemon pickle
Adds sharp acidity that balances the richness of the fat and meat.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and tomato acidity, deepening the colour and flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Allowing the larding to brown after the paper is removed. Once the protective paper comes off, the exposed surface must brown without overcooking the interior. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs dry surface heat; the wrong timing leaves the fat pale or the beef overdone.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ketchup, celery, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ketchup, celery, onion. 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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