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Fillet of Beef Braised

A braised beef fillet cooked with gravy, ham, vegetables, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the braise

  1. Roll the sirloin of beef to bring the fat to the center.

  2. In a stewpan, add the gravy and slices of ham.

  3. Place the rolled meat on top and cover with chopped carrots, celery, button onions, pickled chili, sliced gherkin, sweet herbs, salt, mace, and allspice.

Cook and finish

  1. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  2. Brown the meat before the fire or with a salamander.

  3. Skim and season the sauce.

  4. Serve the meat, sauce, and vegetables together in the same dish.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin of beef
Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in liquid.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the braise, keeping the meat moist as it cooks.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the cooking liquid and sauce.
Carrots
Release sweetness and body into the braising liquid as they cook.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory depth to the braising liquid.
Button onions
Soften and add sweetness and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until the meat is tender. Beef connective tissue breaks down slowly at low, gentle heat. Boiling vigorously toughens the muscle fibers and dries the meat, so the liquid should only barely simmer until the meat is fork-tender.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, carrot, celery, onion, allspice):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, celery, onion, allspice. 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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