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Pot-au-feu

A French stew of diced beef, root vegetables, and herbs simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip 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 ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Combine beef and 2 quarts of water in a large pot.

  2. Cook slowly until beef is tender and water is reduced to 1 quart.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a separate pot, bring water to a boil.

  2. Add vegetables (except potatoes).

  3. Cook for 10 minutes, then discard the water.

  4. Cover the vegetables with 1 quart of cold water.

Finish and serve

  1. Add sliced potatoes, pepper, and salt to the vegetables.

  2. Cook gently for 30 minutes.

  3. Add cooked beef and the reserved quart of gravy to the pot.

  4. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes with minced herbs.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Slow cooking breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender and enriching the broth.
Carrots
Their natural sugars add gentle sweetness to the broth.
Potatoes
Their starch softens during cooking and gives the dish body.
Onion
Frying it first browns its sugars, adding depth and sweetness.
Sweet herbs
Their aromatic oils scent the broth and the finished dish.

The step that matters

Cook gently. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the broth clear and lets the beef become tender without toughening its proteins.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, potato, 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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