Name: Fillets of Beef
Ingredients: beef slices, ½ inch thick and 3-4 inches square; 2 ounces butter; coarse sea salt; pepper; brown sauce; gherkins, chopped fine

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fillets of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Beat the beef slices with a chopper and trim the corners.
Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

Cook and serve

Add the beef slices to the pan and season with salt and pepper.
Cook until done.
Plate the beef with a drizzle of brown sauce and sprinkle with chopped gherkins.

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.

Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,650 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef slices: Provide the main protein, which cooks through and browns in the hot butter.
Butter: Conducts heat to the beef and adds richness and browning in the pan.
Brown sauce: Adds savory depth and moisture to the finished plate.

“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.