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Fillet of Beef, a LA Macedoine

A fillet of beef braised and glazed, served with carrots, turnips, French beans, and asparagus heads.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef, a LA Macedoine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim, lard, and mark the fillet of beef.

Braise

  1. Moisten the fillet with ½ cup of good stock.

  2. Braise the fillet in the same manner as before.

Glaze and serve

  1. Once done, glaze the fillet and dish it up.

  2. Garnish around with groups of carrots, turnips, French beans, and asparagus heads.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beans + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together292 recipes

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

  3. Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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; its lean muscle is cooked gently by braising to stay tender.
Good stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor during braising, helping keep the fillet from drying out.
Thin light-colored glaze
Gives the finished fillet a glossy coating and concentrated savory flavor.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color to the garnish around the fillet.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, beans, asparagus):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, beans, asparagus. 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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