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A Fricandeau of Beef

Beef slices larded with bacon, browned, stewed in stock with morels, truffles, lemon, catsup, sauce, and cayenne pepper, garnished with force‑meat balls and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Fricandeau of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lard the beef slices with bacon and dredge them in flour.

  2. Brown the beef slices over a brisk fire.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the browned beef in a pan with stock, morels, truffles, and lemon.

  2. Stew for 30 minutes.

  3. Add catsup, browning sauce, and Cayenne pepper.

  4. Thicken the sauce and pour it over the beef.

  5. Garnish with force-meat balls and yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Truffle + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Beef + truffletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef slices
Form the main body of the dish, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Bacon
Lardons threaded through the beef add fat that keeps the lean meat moist as it cooks.
Flour
Dredging coats the beef so it browns well and helps thicken the sauce.
Stock
Liquid that braises the beef and forms the base of the sauce.
Morels
Add an earthy, aromatic flavour that deepens the sauce.
Truffles
Add a concentrated, aromatic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the beef over a brisk fire. Searing the floured surface triggers Maillard browning, which builds deep savoury flavour and colour in the meat and sauce. Too little heat leaves the beef grey and flat, while the flour must be coated evenly so it does not scorch.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, truffle, sauce, pepper, meat, egg):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, truffle, sauce, pepper, meat, egg. 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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