Skip to main content
Main

To Roast a Fillet of Beef

Roast a fillet of beef, basting with butter, served with sauce and optional forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

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

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

  2. Trim the fillet of beef, leaving the fat on and removing the skin.

  3. Lard the fillet with large pieces of firm fat or bacon.

Roast

  1. Baste the fillet with butter and roast for 4 to 5 hours, basting frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with your choice of sauce and 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 slowly.
Firm fat or bacon (in the method)
Larding adds fat through the lean meat, keeping it moist and adding flavour during long roasting.
Butter
Basting with melted butter adds moisture and helps the outer surface brown.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the richness of the beef and sauces.

The step that matters

Roast for 4 to 5 hours, basting frequently. Long, slow roasting with frequent basting keeps the surface from drying out while the centre cooks through gently. Basting also builds an even, golden browned crust from the butter and meat juices.

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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes