Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Pounded Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Make the broth
Cut the lean meat from the shin of beef.
Break up the bone and lay it in the bottom of a kettle.
Place the meat on the bones and cover with cold water.
Slowly bring to a boil, removing scum as it rises.
Add the turnips, onions, carrot, herbs, and salt after skimming the broth.
Cover the kettle and boil slowly for six hours.
Prepare the meat
After six hours, remove the meat, fat, and gristle, and discard the bones.
Place the meat in a colander and mash it through with a potato masher.
Season the meat highly.
Press the seasoned meat firmly into a tin or earthen mold.
Strain the remaining broth and save it for soup, using enough to moisten the meat in the mold.
After pressing and moistening the beef, place a weight on top to keep it down.
Set and serve
Let it cool.
Once the beef is cold, turn it out of the mold.
Cut the beef into thin slices.
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.
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Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,842 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Lean beef
- Provides the main body of the dish, which sets into a firm mass as it cools.
- Beef shin bone
- Releases gelatin and flavor into the long-simmered broth that moistens the pressed meat.
- Turnips
- Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth during the long simmer.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and savory depth to the broth during the long simmer.
- Carrot
- Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth during the long simmer.
The step that matters
Moistening the pressed meat. Enough strained broth must be added before pressing the mash into the mold so the meat stays moist and binds as it cools. Too little leaves it dry and crumbly when sliced.
Swap the parsley
The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, turnip, onion, carrot):
- Celeryfits about as well
- Parsleythe original
- Thymefits about as well
- Marjoramfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, onion, carrot. 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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