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Pot-au-feu

A French beef and mutton stew simmered with vegetables and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 148 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Roll the beef and mutton and tie them with string.

  2. Put the meat in a large saucepan and pour the water over it.

  3. Add the coarse sea salt.

  4. Place the saucepan on a slow fire and remove the scum as it rises.

  5. Tie the onion, mace, leek, celery, and chervil together in a bunch and add it to the saucepan.

  6. Add pepper to taste, then the carrots and the turnips.

Cook the broth

  1. Boil gently for 4 to 5 hours.

  2. Remove the meat, the bunch of herbs, and the string from the meat.

  3. Skim the broth.

Bread and serve

  1. Cut bread into thin slices and place the sliced bread in a tureen.

  2. Pour a portion of the broth gently through a sieve onto the bread.

  3. Once the bread swells, pour in the remaining broth.

  4. Chop the chervil finely and add it if desired.

  5. Serve the vegetables and meat 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 + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Clove + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives rich meaty flavor and body to the broth as it simmers slowly.
Mutton
Adds deeper savory flavor and richness to the broth during long simmering.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soften during the long simmer, flavoring the broth.
Leek
Adds gentle onion-like aroma to the broth during simmering.
Celery
Adds savory aroma and background flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Removing the scum as it rises. Skimming foam from the surface while the pot heats keeps the broth clear and free of impurities that would cloud it and taste bitter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, onion, clove, leek, celery, chervil):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, onion, clove, leek, 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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