Name: To Fricassee Cold Roast Beef
Ingredients: cold roast beef, sliced thin; strong broth; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; 1 onion, scored; 2 tablespoons butter; ⅓ cup port wine; 2 teaspoons pyroligenous acid; 2 egg yolks; 1 shallot

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Fricassee Cold Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fricassee

Combine sliced beef and strong broth in a stewpan.
Add chopped parsley, scored onion, and butter; simmer for 15 minutes.
Stir in port wine, pyroligenous acid, and egg yolks; mix well.
Stew quickly, then rub the serving dish with shallot.

Serve

Pour the fricassee into the dish 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.

Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,737 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,431 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks: Enriches and thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a rounded mouthfeel and glossy finish.
Port wine: Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Pyroligenous acid: Contributes smoky, acidic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew quickly after adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, but if they are held at a simmer for long they can curdle and turn grainy. Keeping the stew brief once the yolks are in protects a smooth sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, butter, port wine, egg, shallot):

Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Asparagusfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, butter, port wine, egg, shallot. 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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To Fricassee Cold Roast Beef