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Pot Au Feu De Maison, Ou Bouillon Restaurant

A French beef, veal, and chicken broth simmered with vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 De Maison, Ou Bouillon Restaurant

Ingredients

Directions

Start the broth

  1. Place the beef, veal, and chicken in a large earthen pot.

  2. Add the cold water and place the pot by the fire or on the hob.

  3. Gently skim the surface.

  4. Add salt, carrots, turnip, leeks, celery, and onion.

Simmer and finish

  1. Let it simmer for 5 hours without interruption.

  2. Remove the vegetables, trim them, and taste the bouillon.

  3. Salt the bouillon moderately and skim off the grease.

  4. Place the trimmed vegetables at the bottom of a tureen and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Sliced beef
Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth during the long simmer, giving body.
Veal knuckle
Its bones and connective tissue add gelatin and depth to the bouillon.
Half-roasted chicken
Adds savoury, roasted flavour to the bouillon as it simmers.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Gently skim the surface. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer and skimming foam and fat prevents cloudiness and greasiness, so the bouillon stays clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Lettucefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, chicken, carrot, turnip, leek, 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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