Skip to main content
Main

Pot Au Feu

A traditional French beef and vegetable stew made with brisket, mutton bones, carrots, turnips, cauliflower, and herbs.

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

Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot Au Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a soup pot, combine the beef, mutton bones, onion, grated carrots, grated turnips, sweet herbs, and water.

  2. Cover and cook slowly for 5 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture, reserving the meat and half the stock for later.

  4. Cool the stock and skim off the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Season the remaining stock and return it to the pot.

  2. Add the parboiled turnip, carrot, and cauliflower clusters.

  3. Simmer for 30 minutes and serve.

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 + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and body as it cooks slowly.
Mutton bones
Release gelatin and savoury depth into the long-simmered broth.
Grated carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the stock as they break down.
Grated turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the stock.
Cauliflower
Adds texture and a mild, sweet flavour to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after cooling. Fat that stays in the stock floats on top and makes the broth greasy. Cooling lets the fat rise and solidify so it can be lifted off cleanly before the stock is reheated and seasoned.

Swap the cauliflower

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, carrot, turnip, onion, 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.

More pot-au-feu recipes

Russian 5French 4 See all 133 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes