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Pot-au-feu

A traditional French beef stew simmered with root vegetables and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the beef into shape and place it in a pot with the water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil and add the salt.

  3. Wash the carrots, turnips, parsnip, and celery.

  4. Tie the vegetables together with string and add them to the pot after the meat has boiled for 1 hour.

  5. Tie together the bay leaf, parsley, thyme, and marjoram.

  6. Add the herb bundle along with the onion.

Simmer

  1. After 2 hours, add the cabbage cut in half.

  2. Simmer the pot gently for 4 hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat to a hot dish.

  2. Garnish the meat with the carrots, turnip, and parsnip, pouring a little of the broth over it.

  3. Serve the cabbage in a hot vegetable dish.

  4. Strain the broth through a colander and set aside to cool, leaving the fat until needed.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers slowly in the broth over several hours.
Water
Forms the broth, extracting flavour from the meat and vegetables as it simmers.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the broth and are served as a garnish.
Cabbage
Absorbs savoury broth flavour and becomes soft and sweet during long gentle cooking.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth, with cloves contributing fragrance.

The step that matters

Simmer the pot gently for 4 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and lets collagen in the beef break down slowly into tender meat. A hard boil toughens the meat and makes the broth cloudy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Fennelfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, parsnip, parsley, thyme, marjoram. 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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