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Brisket of Beef A-LA-royale

A brisket stuffed with bacon, parsley, and oysters, baked in red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brisket of Beef A-LA-royale

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Bone the brisket of beef and make holes in it about 1 inch apart.

  2. Fill one hole with fat bacon, a second with chopped parsley, and a third with chopped oysters seasoned with nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour 1 pint of boiling hot red wine over the beef and drench it well with flour.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3 hours or until done.

  3. Remove the fat and strain the gravy over the beef.

  4. Garnish with pickles and serve.

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. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Brisket of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, slow baking.
Fat bacon
Inserted into the beef to add moisture and richness as it cooks.
Chopped oysters
Stuffed into the beef with nutmeg and pepper to add savory, briny flavor.
Red wine
Poured over the beef to add acidity and flavor to the gravy.
Flour
Drenched over the beef to help thicken the gravy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Pour the wine and flour over the beef before baking. Flour must be spread well over the wet, hot wine so it hydrates evenly without clumping. Uneven coverage can leave lumps or pasty patches in the gravy, which is why the wine must be boiling hot.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, oyster, pepper, red wine, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, oyster, pepper, red wine, 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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