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Pot-au-feu

A French beef stew made with bone, meat, vegetables, and herbs, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef bone, lean beef, parsley, celery, leek, and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a slow boil, adding salt and pepper.

  3. Skim the surface thoroughly.

  4. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  5. Add the carrot, onion, turnip, and tomatoes.

  6. Cook for an additional 5 hours.

  7. Do not stop boiling or add water during cooking.

Clarify and rest

  1. Strain the soup through a fine sieve.

  2. Let the strained soup stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, remove the fat.

  4. Carefully pour off the top from the sediment.

Serve

  1. Serve the vegetables in a separate dish.

  2. Pour the hot soup over diced or squared browned bread in the tureen.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Releases meaty flavour into the broth during long, slow cooking.
Beef bone
Releases gelatin and savoury depth into the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Leek
Adds a mild, onion-like aroma to the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness to the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savoury depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface thoroughly. Foam and impurities rise to the surface as the broth first heats. Removing them keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and the simmer should stay gentle so fat and particles do not get mixed back in.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, celery, leek, carrot, onion, turnip):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, celery, leek, carrot, onion, turnip. 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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