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Fillets of Beef

Sliced beef fillets sautéed in butter and served with tomato, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the inside of a sirloin or rump into slices 1 inch thick and trim them neatly.

  2. Melt a little butter in a sauté or frying pan.

  3. Season the fillets with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the fillets lightly until cooked to your preference.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or rump beef
Provides the tender meat that forms the fillets, cooked quickly over direct heat.
Butter
Adds fat to the pan for frying and contributes browning and flavour to the surface.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets lightly until cooked to your preference. Thin fillets cook through quickly, so overcooking dries the meat. Checking doneness early helps keep the centre at the level the cook wants.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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