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Polish. Fillet of Beef

A marinated beef fillet cooked slowly with vinegar, wine, and aromatics, finished with anchovy, bacon fat, and a sauce of flour, sour milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Polish. Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Rub the fillet with a little coarse sea salt and leave it for 4 hours.

  2. Boil vinegar, wine, and water in equal quantities with onion, clove, bay leaf, lemon slices, thyme, and ginger.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the fillet and leave it.

  4. Each day, boil the liquid and pour it over the fillet 2 or 3 times for 3 days.

Cook

  1. Lard the beef with fillets of anchovy.

  2. Place slices of bacon fat in a stewpan, then add the fillet and cover with more bacon fat.

  3. Pour a small quantity of the soaking liquid around the beef, cover with greased paper and a lid.

  4. Simmer slowly on the side of the fire, basting frequently with the cooking liquid and a little sour milk.

  5. Once cooked, remove any settled fat from the fillet.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make a sauce with flour, sour milk, butter, a pounded anchovy, and some of the beef's soaking liquid.

  2. Add capers and serve 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

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

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, becoming tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that helps tenderise the meat during the long soak.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the beef and to the sauce as it breaks down in cooking.
Sour milk
Acidity and moisture for basting, and a tangy base for the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the beef.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with frequent basting. Low, gentle heat keeps the fillet from toughening, and regular basting with cooking liquid keeps the surface moist so it does not dry out over the long cook.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, wine, clove, lemon, thyme, ginger):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, wine, clove, lemon, thyme, ginger. 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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