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Fillet of Beef Marinaded

A marinated beef fillet rolled with forcemeat, wrapped in veal caul, roasted, and glazed with a reduced Port wine and cucumber sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 264 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef Marinaded

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Lay the fillet in a mixture of boiling Port wine, vinegar, chopped shallots, and allspice.

  2. Let it marinate for 24 hours.

Stuff and roast

  1. Wipe the fillet dry and spread forcemeat on it.

  2. Roll the fillet up tightly and cover it with veal caul.

  3. Roast the fillet until cooked through.

Glaze and serve

  1. Reduce the remaining marinade to a glaze and mix in cucumber sauce.

  2. Glaze the top of the beef and serve with the sauce around it.

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 + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Allspice + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together501 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Vinegar + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  5. Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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, cooked through and sliced for serving.
Port wine
Flavours the marinade and, reduced, forms the glaze with its sweetness and depth.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the marinade, helping to tenderise and brighten the meat.
Forcemeat
Fills the rolled fillet, adding moisture and flavour inside the meat.
Veal caul
Wraps the rolled fillet during roasting, keeping it moist and protected.

The step that matters

Roast the fillet until cooked through. A rolled fillet cooks unevenly because its outer layers heat faster than the centre. Checking the thickest part with a thermometer helps avoid overcooking the outside while the middle stays underdone.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, vinegar, shallot, veal, cucumber, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, vinegar, shallot, veal, cucumber, sauce. 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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