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Fricandeau of Beef

A braised beef dish larded with bacon and seasoned with pepper, cloves, mace, allspice, and herbs, finished with a reduced glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lard the beef with bacon.

  2. Season the beef with pepper, cloves, mace, and allspice.

Braise

  1. Place the beef in a stew pan with broth, sherry, parsley, sweet herbs, garlic, and shallots.

  2. Cook until the meat is tender.

  3. Cover the beef closely.

Make the glaze and serve

  1. Skim the sauce.

  2. Strain the sauce.

  3. Boil the sauce until reduced to a glaze.

  4. Glaze the larded side of the beef.

  5. Serve the beef with tomato sauce.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  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

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow cooking.
Bacon
Larding adds fat and moisture that keep the lean meat from drying out.
Broth or beef gravy
Provides the liquid that cooks the beef and forms the base of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce, rounding out the flavour.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Sweet herbs
Contribute aromatic flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until reduced to a glaze. The sauce must reduce enough to thicken and cling to the meat. If it is too thin, it will not coat the beef; if over-reduced, it becomes overly salty and sticky.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, allspice, sherry, parsley, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, allspice, sherry, parsley, garlic. 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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