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Fillets of Beef

Thin slices of sirloin or rump beef, lightly fried and served with tomato, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the inside of a sirloin or rump into slices 1 inch thick and trim them neatly.

  2. Melt a little butter in a sauté or frying pan.

  3. Season the fillets with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the fillets lightly in the butter.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce, sorrel, anchovy butter, or gherkin sauce.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + sorreltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together419 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or rump beef
Forms the main body of the dish; its lean meat cooks quickly into tender fillets.
Butter
Conducts heat into the meat and adds richness and browning in the pan.
Anchovy butter
Adds a salty, savoury flavour that complements the seared beef.
Gherkin sauce
Adds acidity that cuts through the richness of the beef and butter.

The step that matters

Frying the fillets lightly in the butter. Beef fillets cook fast, so overcooking dries out the lean meat. Hot butter browns the surface quickly, and removing the fillets while still tender keeps them juicy.

Swap the sorrel

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, tomato, sauce, anchovy):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Sorrelthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, tomato, sauce, anchovy. 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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