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To Stew Brisket of Beef

A hearty stew made with brisket, root vegetables, and optional suet dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

To Stew Brisket of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Place the brisket with the hard fat into a stewpot and add a small quantity of water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim thoroughly.

  3. Add carrots, turnips, onions, celery, and peppercorns.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew until extremely tender.

  2. Remove the flat bones and all fat from the soup.

  3. Serve the soup in a tureen or the meat on a dish garnished with vegetables.

  4. Optional: Add small suet dumplings to the soup.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Brisket of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavours the broth during long slow stewing.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during stewing.
Onions
Add savoury depth and aroma to the broth as they cook down.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and texture to the broth as they soften.

The step that matters

Skim thoroughly after the boil. Bringing the liquid to a boil releases impurities and fat that rise to the surface as scum. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy result.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, 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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