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Bouilli Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew with carrots, turnips, onions, wine, mustard, ketchup, flour, and pickled cucumber.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Bouilli Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the brisket of beef in a pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

Simmer

  1. Add the diced carrots, turnips, and onion, along with the clove‑studded onion.

  2. Simmer for three hours.

  3. Stir in the red wine, mixed mustard, and tomato soy or ketchup, then simmer for one more hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef and stir the flour into the gravy, bringing it to a boil.

  2. Pour the gravy over the beef and top with finely chopped pickled cucumber.

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. Turnip + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

Brisket of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the cooking liquid and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the beef.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the cooking liquid as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the cooking liquid as they soften.
Tomato soy or ketchup
Adds acidity, sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after boiling. Scum rising during the first boil contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Removing it keeps the broth clear and prevents off flavours from settling into the gravy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, red wine, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, red wine, tomato. 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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