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Bouilli Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew with vegetables, seasoned with mustard and soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bouilli Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Boil the beef in a large pot with 6 quarts of water for 6 to 8 hours.

  2. Remove the beef from the pot.

  3. Let the beef cool overnight.

  4. Strain the broth into a soup jar.

Make the gravy and braise

  1. Heat a saucepan that can hold the beef.

  2. Finely chop 2 onions. Fry the chopped onions in a little butter.

  3. Add flour to the onions to brown them.

  4. Place the beef in the saucepan.

  5. Chop 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 2 onions, a little celery, and 1 leek into small dice. Arrange the diced vegetables around the beef.

  6. Pour enough of the reserved stock to just cover the beef.

  7. Cook slowly for 2.5 hours.

  8. Remove the meat.

  9. Add 1 tablespoon of mixed mustard to the gravy. Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce to the gravy.

  10. Add flour to the gravy if needed.

  11. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  12. Pour the gravy over the meat and vegetables.

Serve

  1. Finely chop 2 pickled cucumbers. Sprinkle the chopped cucumbers on top before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps the onions brown in the fat.
Onions
Build the flavour base of the gravy as they soften and brown in butter.
Pickled cucumbers
Add acidity and a sharp contrast to the rich, savoury meat.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness and pungency that balances the richness of the gravy.
Soy sauce
Adds savoury depth and umami to the gravy.

The step that matters

Let the beef cool overnight. Chilling the cooked beef in its broth lets it firm up so it can be sliced cleanly. Cooling also lets fat solidify on the surface so it can be lifted off the broth.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, pepper, butter, flour, 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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