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Braised Beef

Braised beef with salt pork, carrots, turnip, onion, celery, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix the salt pork, carrot, turnip, onion, and celery in a baking dish, reserving ½ cup for later.

  3. Place the beef on top of the vegetable mixture and dredge it with flour.

Braise

  1. Brown the beef in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

  2. Add the stock or water and the bunch of herbs to the pan.

  3. Spread the reserved vegetables over the meat and add ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover the dish tightly with another pan and cook slowly for 4 to 5 hours.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as its connective tissue breaks down during long slow cooking.
Flour
Coats the beef so it browns well and helps thicken the cooking liquid slightly.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the braising liquid and the vegetables.
Onion
Builds savory depth as it softens and sweetens in the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly and cook slowly. A tight cover traps steam so the liquid stays at a gentle simmer, letting tough connective tissue in the round break down slowly without drying the meat.

Swap the onion

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

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

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