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Braized Beef

Braised beef simmered with pork, ham, onions, carrot, herbs, and stock, then roasted and served with a reduced glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Braized Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Roll and tie the meat with string.

Braise

  1. In a broad-bottomed saucepan, place the bone pieces, larding pork, raw ham, onions, and carrot.

  2. Add the bouquet of herbs and lay the beef on top.

  3. Pour in the stock or broth.

  4. Cover with buttered paper and the lid.

  5. Simmer on low heat for about three hours.

Roast and make the sauce

  1. Remove the meat and place it in a roasting pan with some broth.

  2. Roast for 30 minutes, basting frequently.

  3. Strain the remaining broth to remove fat and reduce it by boiling until it becomes a half glaze.

  4. Place the meat on a hot dish.

  5. Add the glaze to the remaining gravy in the pan.

  6. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour cooked together, then stir in lemon juice and sugar.

  7. Pour some sauce over the meat and serve the rest in a sauce bowl.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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
Provides the main meat that becomes tender through long, slow, moist cooking.
Larding pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the braising liquid and the meat.
Raw ham
Contributes salty, savory depth to the braising liquid and aromatics.
Onions
Build savory sweetness and body in the braising liquid and gravy.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the gravy.
Stock or broth
Provides the liquid that braises the beef and forms the base of the glaze and gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently over low heat. A low, steady simmer breaks down the connective tissue in the rump slowly, making the meat tender. A hard boil would toughen the muscle fibers and make the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, pork, ham, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, pork, ham, onion, butter, flour. 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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