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French Pot Au Feu

A French beef broth with vegetables served with sliced bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

French Pot Au Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pot

  1. In a large pot, combine 1 gallon of water and 4 pounds of beef.

  2. Add 3 teaspoons of coarse sea salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper, 4 onions, 4 leeks, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, and 3 cloves.

  3. If using, add 1 burnt onion or 3 tablespoons of coloring.

Simmer and serve

  1. Set the pot on the fire and skim off any scum that forms.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 4 hours, adding a drop of cold water occasionally to keep the broth clear.

  3. Serve sliced bread in a tureen, pour the broth and vegetables over it, and serve the meat and remaining vegetables 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.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, enriching the broth with body and savory flavor.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook down.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like flavor to the broth.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness into the broth during the long simmer.
Turnips
Add a subtly sweet, earthy flavor to the broth and vegetables.

The step that matters

Skimming scum and keeping the simmer gentle. Scum is coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the broth if left to mix in. Skimming early and simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting over the long cooking time.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, leek, carrot, turnip, clove, liver):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, leek, carrot, turnip, clove, liver. 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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