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Roast Fillet

Roast fillet cooked with vegetables, brown stock, and a brown gravy finished with Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Fillet

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Lard the fillet and remove sinewy skin, gristle, and excess fat.

  2. In a baking pan, layer the sliced larding or pickled pork, onion, carrot, turnip, and celery.

  3. Place the fillet on top of the vegetables.

  4. Pour the brown stock over the fillet and season with salt, pepper, parsley, bay leaf, and cloves.

Roast

  1. Cook in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting frequently.

  2. Drain the gravy.

  3. Remove excess grease.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Mix in the flour until browned.

  3. Add the gravy and additional brown stock.

  4. Stir until it boils.

  5. Stir in the chopped mushrooms.

  6. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  7. Finish with a splash of Madeira or sherry.

  8. Pour around the fillet.

  9. Serve.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of meat
Is the main cut that is roasted and carved for the dish.
Larding or pickled pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the fillet as it roasts.
Brown stock
Provides moisture and savory depth for roasting and for the gravy.
Butter
Fat that carries the flour and gives the gravy richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and, when browned, adds color and nutty flavor.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and body to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in butter. Cooking the flour until browned develops color and nutty flavor and cooks out raw starch taste. Stirring keeps it from scorching, and it must be fully mixed before the stock is added to avoid lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pork, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pork, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, parsley. 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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