Skip to main content
Main

Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef baked with pork larding and served with a mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the fillet

  1. Have your butcher dress the fillet to avoid hollows.

  2. Lard the top of the fillet with thin strips of pork.

  3. Place the fillet in a small baking pan with chopped pork, beef suet, and a little boiling water.

  4. Sprinkle coarse sea salt and black pepper over the fillet.

  5. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes, basting often.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil scraps of bones and meat in 1 pint of water.

  2. Strain the liquid.

  3. Combine ½ pint of the strained liquid with mushroom juice in a stew pan.

  4. Thicken the sauce with a mixture of butter and flour.

  5. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  6. Add the mushrooms to the sauce, simmer for 1 minute.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fillet before serving.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Forms the main cut of meat that is roasted and served.
Beef suet
Adds fat to the pan, keeping the lean fillet moist while it bakes.
Butter
Combined with flour to thicken the sauce and add richness.
Flour
Mixed with butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
Pork strips for larding
Add fat to the lean fillet, keeping it moist and tender during roasting.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Basting the fillet in a very hot oven. A very hot oven sears the outside and seals in juices, while frequent basting keeps the surface from drying out before the centre is cooked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, pepper, meat, mushroom, butter, flour. 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.

More beef fillet recipes

Roasted 20Roast 16Roast 13Braised 11with Mushroom Sauce 8Braised with Madeira Sauce 6 See all 19 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes