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Boiled Brisket of Beef and Bbuis

A boiled brisket of pickled beef served with bread and vegetables, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Boiled Brisket of Beef and Bbuis

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Place the brisket in an iron pot and cover it with water.

  2. Bring the water to a slow boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer, skimming frequently.

  3. Cook for 30 minutes per pound after it starts boiling.

  4. One hour before the beef is done, add the bread to the pot to boil.

Serve

  1. Serve the beef with some of the cooking liquid poured over it, and arrange carrots or greens around the dish.

  2. Skim off 1 teacup of fat from the liquid, pour it over the bread, sprinkle with pepper, and serve with the beef.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Bread + carrottop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Bread
Soaks up the seasoned fat and cooking liquid, becoming moist and flavourful.
Fat from the cooking liquid (in the method)
Adds richness and carries flavour over the bread and beef.

The step that matters

Keeping the simmer gentle. A rolling boil toughens the meat's proteins and can make the beef stringy and dry, while a gentle simmer lets collagen slowly break down into tender, moist meat.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pepper):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pepper. 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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