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Garbure

Garbure is a hearty French stew made with beef, veal, hen, root vegetables, greens, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 396 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Garbure

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the beef, veal, hen, carrots, onions, turnips, lettuce, celery, chervil, and cloves in a large saucepan.

  2. Pour the broth over the ingredients and bring to a boil, then skim off any foam and reduce the heat to let it cook slowly until everything is tender.

  3. Strain the broth and, if it's not strong enough, reduce it to one quart.

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. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Provides the main meat flavour and body to the broth as it cooks slowly.
Veal shin
Adds gelatin from the bones and connective tissue, giving the broth more body.
Hen
Contributes rich poultry flavour and tender meat to the pot.
Carrots
Add sweetness and earthy aroma as they soften in the broth.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and sweetness as they cook down.
Broth
Forms the cooking liquid that extracts flavour from every ingredient.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam. Foam rises from proteins and impurities released by the meat early in cooking. Skimming it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, while letting it simmer gently rather than boil keeps it from turning cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, carrot, turnip, lettuce, celery, chervil):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, carrot, turnip, lettuce, celery, chervil. 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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