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Pot-au-feu or Soup

A traditional French beef stew made with ox cheek, vegetables, and herbs simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 or Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Add 6 quarts of water to a large pot.

  2. Tie 4 lbs of beef or ox cheek meat into a shape with string and place it in the pot.

  3. Bring the pot to a boil.

  4. Once boiling, add ½ oz of coarse sea salt and reduce heat to simmer.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash 2 carrots, 2 leeks, 2 turnips, 1 parsnip, and 1 small head of celery in cold water.

  2. Scrape the carrots and parsnip, then cut them into quarters.

  3. Trim the leeks to use only the white part.

  4. Remove the green tops from the celery.

  5. Tie the leeks, celery, parsnip, and carrots together with string.

  6. Cut the cabbage in half, wash it, and tie it together with string.

Simmer

  1. Skim the pot occasionally.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or ox cheek meat
Provides the main flavour and rich body to the broth as it simmers.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness to the broth as they cook.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the pot occasionally. Skimming removes the grey foam and fat that rise during simmering, keeping the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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