Name: Fillet of Beef
Ingredients: 1 large sirloin of beef; ½ cup port wine; ½ cup vinegar; Stuffing (as for hare); 1 teaspoon Jamaica pepper; 2 cloves, finely powdered; Butter; Rich gravy (for serving); Currant jelly sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the inside of the sirloin in port wine and vinegar for 24 hours.
Prepare a good stuffing as for hare and place it in the middle of the beef.
Roll the beef up tightly.
Roast the beef on a spit, basting with a mixture of wine, vinegar, Jamaica pepper, and powdered cloves until dry.
Then baste with butter.
Serve with rich gravy and currant jelly 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.

Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together356 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together914 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, port wine, vinegar, pepper, clove, butter, sauce):

Figfits better
Plumfits better
Cherryfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, port wine, vinegar, pepper, clove, butter, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.