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Beef, Fricandeau of

A braised beef dish flavored with garlic, allspice, mace, and savory herbs, served with sorrel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Beef, Fricandeau of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lard the beef and pound the garlic, allspice, and mace together.

  2. Mix the seasoning with pepper and salt, then sprinkle the mixture over the meat.

  3. Place the meat in a stewpan with stock, white wine, herbs, shallots, and additional pepper and salt.

Stew and glaze

  1. Stew the meat slowly for 2 hours until tender.

  2. Remove the meat from the stewpan and keep the meat warm.

  3. Skim the fat from the gravy and strain the gravy.

  4. Boil the gravy until reduced to a glaze, then pour the glaze over the meat.

Cook the sorrel

  1. Wash and pick the sorrel.

  2. Place the sorrel in a stewpan with the water that clings to it, and stir the sorrel to prevent sticking.

  3. Drain excess water.

  4. Add butter and gravy, then stew the sorrel for 20 minutes.

  5. Add sugar if the sorrel is too acidic.

  6. Serve the meat with sorrel.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Garlic + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow stewing.
Stock
Provides moisture and liquid for braising, later reduced into the glaze.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid and gravy.
Garlic
Contributes aroma and savoury flavour to the seasoning rubbed into the meat.
Shallots
Adds mild aromatic sweetness to the braising liquid.
Sorrel
Provides a tart, acidic leafy accompaniment that is balanced by butter and sugar.

The step that matters

Boil the gravy until reduced to a glaze. Reducing the strained gravy concentrates its flavour and gelatin, so it clings to the meat as a glossy coating rather than thinning out on the plate.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, garlic, allspice, pepper, white wine, shallot):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, garlic, allspice, pepper, white wine, shallot. 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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