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Beef Bouilli

A boiled beef stew with carrots, turnip, onion, potatoes, suet, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Bouilli

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Tie the beef into a neat shape with muslin.

  2. Place the tied beef in a large stewing pan.

  3. Cover the beef with boiling water.

Simmer

  1. Simmer over moderate heat, skimming the surface carefully.

  2. Cook for 45 minutes per pound.

  3. Add salt, carrot, turnip, and onion.

  4. Add the sliced potatoes.

Thicken and serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the meat.

  2. Rub together suet and flour, then stir the mixture into the boiling stew.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Serve in a tureen, reserving some vegetables to garnish the meat.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Round beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that gives the broth a fuller body.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks into the boiling broth.
Potatoes
Soften during simmering and add starch that helps body the stew.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface. Boiling water pulls scum and fat to the top as the beef cooks. Skimming early keeps the broth clear and stops off flavours from spreading through the stew.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, potato, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, potato, flour. 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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