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Pot Au Feu

A slow-cooked beef and vegetable broth with silver side of round beef, turnips, carrots, leek, parsnips, onions, parsley, celery, cloves, peppercorns, browning, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Pot Au Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the beef and cold water.

  2. Skim the surface carefully before it begins to boil.

  3. Once the scum is removed, add the turnips, carrots, leek, parsnips, onions, parsley, celery, cloves, peppercorns, browning, and salt.

Simmer and serve

  1. Simmer very slowly for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Strain the soup through a fine sieve before serving.

  3. Serve the beef hot or cold, preferably cold.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Silver side of round beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the broth.
Parsnips
Add earthy sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the surface before it boils. Scum is coagulated protein and fat that rises as the liquid heats. Removing it before the boil keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, turnip, carrot, leek, parsnip, parsley, celery. 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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