Skip to main content
Main

Pot-au-feu

A French beef stew made with lean beef, bone, root vegetables, leeks, onions, celery, parsnips, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large stock pot, combine the beef and bone with enough water to cover.

  2. Add the carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, celery, and parsnips.

  3. Stick the clove into the onion and add it to the pot along with the kitchen herbs.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours until the meat is tender.

Serve

  1. Strain the broth and serve hot, keeping the meat intact for serving.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh lean beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful as it simmers slowly.
Beef bone
Adds body and savory depth to the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and color to the broth.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering the pot gently until the meat is tender. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and makes the broth cloudy, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue slowly break down into gelatin, giving tender meat and a clear, rich broth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, leek, onion, celery, parsnip):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, onion, celery, parsnip. 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.

More pot-au-feu recipes

Russian 5French 4 See all 133 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes