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Fricandeau of Beef

A stewed beef dish flavored with cloves, mace, allspice, sherry, and savoury herbs, served with sorrel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Beef

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut some bacon into thin strips.

  2. Sprinkle over the bacon a seasoning of pepper and salt mixed with cloves, mace, and allspice, well pounded.

  3. Lard the beef with this seasoning.

  4. Put the beef into a stewpan with the stock or water, sherry, herbs, shallots, 2 cloves, and more pepper and salt.

  5. Stew the meat gently until tender.

Make the glaze

  1. Take the meat out, cover it closely, skim off all the fat from the gravy, and strain it.

  2. Set the gravy on the fire and boil until it becomes a glaze.

  3. Glaze the larded side of the beef with this glaze.

Make the sorrel sauce and serve

  1. Wash and pick some sorrel.

  2. Put the sorrel into a stewpan with only the water that hangs about it.

  3. Keep stirring to prevent burning.

  4. When done, lay the sorrel in a sieve to drain.

  5. Chop the sorrel.

  6. Stew the sorrel with a small piece of butter and 4 or 6 tablespoonfuls of good gravy for an hour.

  7. Rub the sorrel through a tammy.

  8. If too acidic, add a little sugar.

  9. Optionally, add a little cabbage‑lettuce boiled with the sorrel.

  10. Serve the beef on sorrel sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

145Calories
0 gProtein
12 gFat
5 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender through slow stewing.
Bacon (in the method)
Thin strips add fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean beef moist.
Gravy
Reduced into a glaze that gives the beef a rich, glossy coating.
Sorrel (in the method)
Gives the sauce its tangy, acidic flavour, which sugar can balance.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stewed sorrel sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy to a glaze. Reducing the strained gravy concentrates its proteins and sugars, so it sets into a glossy coating; boiling too briefly leaves it thin and watery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, clove, allspice, sherry, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, clove, allspice, sherry, 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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