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Bouillon of Beef

A beef broth with turnips, carrots, onions, cabbage sprouts, and herbs, finished with a roasted beef garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 and simmer

  1. Cover the beef with water.

  2. Cook the covered beef slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Cut the turnips, carrots, and onions into long strips.

  4. Leave the cabbage sprouts whole.

  5. Cook the vegetables in boiling salted water for 20 minutes.

  6. Discard the water.

  7. Skim the soup well after 1 hour.

  8. Add the vegetables to the soup.

  9. Stew everything slowly for 2 more hours without boiling.

Brown the beef

  1. Remove the beef from the pot.

  2. Place the beef in a dripping pan.

  3. Pour a cup of strained soup seasoned with pepper, salt, and mustard over the beef.

  4. Dredge the beef thickly with flour.

  5. Brown the floured beef in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting every few minutes.

Finish the soup and serve

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

  2. Rub the remaining vegetables through a colander.

  3. Season the soup and pulp.

  4. Add the herbs and return to the saucepan.

  5. Boil sharply for 5 minutes.

  6. Stir in butter and flour.

  7. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

  8. Serve the soup in a tureen with the reserved vegetables 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
Slow cooking in water gives the meat flavour and turns it tender, while it also enriches the broth.
Turnips
Sweet, earthy vegetables that flavour the broth and, rubbed through, thicken it.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth when cooked and pressed through a colander.
Onions
Release sugars and aroma during the long stew, deepening the soup's savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Coats the beef so it browns in the oven, and thickens the soup when stirred in with butter.

The step that matters

Skimming the soup after the first hour. Skimming removes the foam and fat that rise as the meat cooks. Leaving them in makes the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, onion, cabbage, butter, 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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