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Fillet of Beef

A fillet of beef roasted with pork fat, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with mushroom sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Have your butcher prepare the fillet of beef.

  2. Lard the upper side of the fillet.

  3. Place the fillet in a baking pan with boiling water and chopped fat pork.

  4. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and cook for one hour.

  2. Baste frequently.

Serve

  1. Serve with mushroom 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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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

Fillet of beef
Provides the main meat, which cooks through to a tender, sliceable roast.
Fat pork
Adds fat that melts into the beef during roasting, supporting moisture and flavour.
Boiling water
Sits in the pan to add moisture and keep drippings from scorching during roasting.

The step that matters

Baste frequently. Spooning melted fat and pan juices over the beef during roasting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly. Skipping basting lets the exposed outside dry out before the centre is cooked.

“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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