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Beef a LA Daube

A slow‑cooked beef dish with bacon, carrots, onions, and a gelatinous broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef a LA Daube

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the beef

  1. Lard the round of beef and place it in a stew pan.

  2. Cut the beef into slices near the bone and surround it with bacon, carrots, and onions.

  3. Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and thyme.

  4. Cover with water and let it stew slowly for 4 to 6 hours.

  5. Remove the beef and let it cool.

Clarify the broth

  1. Strain the broth through a sieve and skim off the fat.

  2. Add a few grains of pepper and simmer the broth.

  3. Beat the egg whites in a cup of water and stir them into the broth.

  4. Let it simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, then strain the jelly.

  5. When cool, garnish the meat with the jelly.

  6. Prepare this dish the day before serving.

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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Provides the lean meat that becomes tender during slow, long stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the broth as it stews.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.
Egg whites
Trap cloudy particles as they set, clarifying the broth into a clear jelly.

The step that matters

Skim the fat and clarify the broth. Fat left in the broth makes the jelly greasy and cloudy. Skimming removes it, and the egg white raft gathers suspended solids as it simmers, so the strained jelly comes out clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, pepper, thyme, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, pepper, thyme, egg. 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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