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Brisket of Beef Stewed with Vegetables

A stew of brisket cooked with carrots, onions, turnips, vinegar, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Brisket of Beef Stewed with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine boiling water and vinegar in a saucepan.

  2. Place the brisket in the saucepan and surround it with carrots, onions, and turnips.

  3. Add peppercorns and cover with a lid.

Stew and serve

  1. Set on a very low heat and stew gently for 3.5 hours.

  2. After cooking, transfer the meat and vegetables to a hot dish and cover.

  3. Brown and thicken the gravy, then boil and pour over the dish.

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 + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Vinegar
Adds a mild acidity that brightens the gravy's flavor.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and body to the stew and gravy.
Onions
Add savory depth and sweetness as they soften during stewing.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and texture to the stewed vegetables.

The step that matters

Stew on a very low heat. Gentle, low heat over a long period breaks down the tough connective tissue in brisket, making it tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can dry it out.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, beef, onion, turnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, beef, onion, turnip. 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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