Skip to main content
Main

Roast Fillet of Beef

A marinated beef fillet roasted with onion, parsley, vinegar, and served with Spanish sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Lard the beef with bacon.

  2. Place the beef in a pan and cover it with vinegar.

  3. Add the sliced onion, parsley, and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Let it marinate for 12 hours.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the beef over a clear fire for about 1 hour.

  2. Once done, glaze the beef.

  3. Pour some Spanish sauce around the beef and serve the remainder in a tureen.

  4. Garnish with boiled and glazed Spanish onions.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Inside fillet of beef
Lean, tender roast that is the main body of the dish.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that helps tenderise the surface of the meat.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the marinade.
Bacon (in the method)
Lardoons add fat and moisture to the lean fillet as it roasts.

The step that matters

Roast over a clear fire. Lean fillet dries out and overcooks quickly under strong heat, so the fire must be even and the roast checked as it cooks. Resting after cooking lets juices redistribute through the meat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, vinegar, meat, sauce):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, vinegar, meat, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes