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Braised Beef

A slow‑cooked beef dish with pork fat, vegetables, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Cut the pork into thin slices and fry until brown and crisp.

  2. Remove the pork and cook the vegetables in the remaining fat for 15 minutes.

  3. Rub half the pepper and 2 teaspoons of salt into the beef and place it in a deep pan.

  4. Add the cooked vegetables to the meat, pressing out excess fat.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir the flour into the remaining fat in the pan until dark brown.

  2. Gradually add the water while stirring to make gravy.

  3. Season the gravy with the remaining salt and pepper, and boil for 5 minutes.

Braise

  1. Pour the gravy over the meat, add the cloves and parsley, and cover the pan.

  2. Cook in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 5 hours, basting every 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow braising.
Flour
Browned in the fat, it thickens the water into a gravy.
Fat salt pork
Its rendered fat browns the vegetables and flour and adds savoury flavour.
Minced carrot
Softened in fat, it adds sweetness and body to the gravy.
Minced onion
Softened in fat, it adds savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the fat. Flour must be cooked until dark brown to develop a nutty flavour and colour in the gravy. Stopping early leaves a pale, raw-tasting sauce, while cooking too long can scorch it and taste bitter.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, flour, pepper, onion, carrot, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, flour, pepper, onion, carrot, parsley. 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.

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