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Boiled Beef

A pot of brisket simmered with carrots, turnips, onions, celery, peppercorns, cloves, parsley, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the beef in a large pot and cover with water, adding about 1 quart more than needed to cover the meat.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil over high heat, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.

  2. Once the liquid is clear, add the carrots, turnips, onions, celery, peppercorns, cloves, parsley, and sweet herbs.

  3. Reduce heat and cover, allowing to simmer gently for 4-6 hours depending on the cut of meat.

  4. After an hour, remove the vegetables, trim the celery and onions, and return them to the pot if desired.

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 + 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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket or blade bone
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after boiling. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, clove, 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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