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Bouillon of Beef

A hearty beef broth with turnips, carrots, onions, cabbage sprouts, and herbs, finished with butter and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Bouillon of Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beef and vegetables

  1. Cover the beef with water and cook slowly for 1 hour.

  2. Meanwhile, cut the vegetables into long strips, leaving the sprouts whole.

  3. Cook the vegetables in boiling salted water for 20 minutes, then discard the water.

Make the broth

  1. After 1 hour, skim the soup well and add the vegetables.

  2. Stew everything very slowly for 2 more hours without a fast boil.

  3. Take half of the vegetables from the pot and keep them hot.

  4. Rub the remaining vegetables through a colander, season the soup and pulp, add the herbs, and return to the saucepan.

  5. Boil sharply for 6 minutes, then stir in butter and flour, and simmer for 5 minutes until ready.

Brown the beef and serve

  1. Remove the beef and place it in a dripping pan.

  2. Pour 1 cup of strained soup seasoned with pepper, salt, and mustard over the beef, dredge with flour, and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting every few minutes.

  3. Season the reserved vegetables and serve them hot around the beef.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef brisket or round
Provides the meat that becomes tender and rich-flavored as it simmers slowly in the broth.
Turnips
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they cook and soften.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color to the broth and the served vegetables.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Butter and flour
Thicken the broth and add richness through a light roux-style finish.

The step that matters

Stew without a fast boil. Keeping the broth at a gentle simmer for the long stew keeps the beef tender and the broth clear; a hard boil toughens meat and clouds the liquid.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, onion, butter, flour, mustard. 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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