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Palais De Bœuf Al Gratin

A baked casserole of beef palates, bread, bacon, and stuffing, wrapped in bacon and buttered paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Palais De Bœuf Al Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the palates

  1. Remove the black parts from the beef palates and soak them in salted water.

  2. Press them often until a white film easily comes off, then drain and rinse in cold water.

  3. Cook the palates in a mirepoix for 2 hours, then drain and press them.

  4. Cut the cooked palates in half lengthwise and shape them into long squares.

Assemble

  1. Prepare a baking dish lined with ½ inch of fine stuffing.

  2. Fry a piece of bread (3 inches in diameter, 4 inches tall) and place it in the center of the dish.

  3. Arrange the beef palates around the bread, rolling them into barrels.

  4. Fill any gaps with fine stuffing and smooth it with a knife dipped in hot water.

Bake and serve

  1. Wrap the dish with thin slices of bacon and cover with buttered paper.

  2. Tie it securely and bake in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Unwrap and carefully degrease before serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef palates
Form the main meat body of the gratin, becoming tender after long slow cooking.
Fine stuffing
Lines the dish and fills gaps, adding bulk and a moist, savory base around the palates.
Bacon
Wraps the dish, releasing fat and flavor as it cooks over the palates.
Bread
Fried and set in the centre as a firm core that the palates are shaped around.
Butter
Buttered paper covering adds fat that helps keep the surface from drying out.

The step that matters

Press and drain the palates before cooking. Soaking and pressing removes the black parts and white film; leftover film and excess moisture can give a rough texture and dilute the gratin.

“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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