Skip to main content
Main

Braised Beef

A slow‑cooked beef dish braised with salt pork, vegetables, and stock, thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Braised Beef

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Spread the salt pork in a braising pan and top with the chopped onion, carrot, turnip, and celery.

  3. Place the beef on top and dredge it with salt, pepper, and flour.

Braise

  1. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. After 30 minutes, add 1½ pints of water or soup stock, basting the meat with the liquid and dredging again with salt, pepper, and flour.

  3. Cook for 4 hours, basting every 15 minutes.

  4. After 2 hours, add another pint of stock or water.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the corn starch with ½ cup of cold water and stir it into the pan juices.

  2. Cook uncovered for the last 30 minutes until the meat is a delicate brown.

  3. Transfer the meat to a serving dish, strain the gravy, season if necessary, and pour some over the beef, serving the rest separately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Long, slow braising turns the tough cut tender and gives the meat its rich flavour.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the pan, adding savoury flavour and moisture to the braise.
Flour
Dredged on the meat, it helps form a light crust and thickens the pan juices.
Corn starch
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy when stirred in and cooked.

The step that matters

Keeping the braise covered and basting. Liquid and steam keep the meat moist over the long cooking time. Letting the liquid run low or skipping the basting can dry the meat and leave the gravy thin and bitter-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper, flour. 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.

More braised beef recipes

Roll 13Tongue 13Fillet 11Fillet with Madeira Sauce 6Fillets 5Ribs 5 See all 61 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes