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Beef Bouillu

A boiled beef dish with carrots, onions, herbs, potatoes, and rice, seasoned and served with its own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Beef Bouillu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Buy several pounds of solid lean beef.

  2. Cut the beef thick and square.

  3. Lard the beef with strips of salt pork.

  4. Tie the beef with a small cord.

Cook the beef

  1. Place the beef in a tightly covered tin pail without water.

  2. Add chopped carrot, onion, celery seed, sage, marjoram, and thyme to the pail.

  3. Cover the pail to exclude air.

  4. Place the pail in an iron pot of water.

  5. Boil steadily.

  6. Replenish the water with hot water from a kettle as needed.

  7. After three hours, turn the beef over.

  8. Add salt and pepper.

  9. Fill the pail nearly to the top with thick slices of raw potatoes.

  10. Cover the pail.

  11. Boil for three more hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the cord from the meat.

  2. Place the meat in the center of a large flat dish.

  3. Surround the beef with boiled rice.

  4. Place the potatoes on top.

  5. Pour the seasoned extract or gravy from the pail 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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Sage + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Solid lean beef
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle moist cooking.
Salt pork
Lardings melt slowly into the meat, adding fat, moisture and savory flavor.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aroma to the seasoned liquid that forms the gravy.
Onion
Adds aroma and savory depth to the seasoned extract in the pail.
Raw potatoes
Absorb the seasoned juices as they cook, becoming soft and flavorful.

The step that matters

Keep the pail sealed and the water topped up while boiling. A tightly covered pail traps the meat's own juices, so it cooks gently in steam and extract rather than drying out. Letting the water run low or the lid lift would let moisture escape and the meat toughen.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, carrot, celery, sage, marjoram, thyme):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, carrot, celery, sage, marjoram, thyme. 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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