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Fricassee of Cold Roast Beef

A chilled beef fricassee made with sliced roast beef, parsley, onion, bay leaf, butter, broth, egg yolks, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Cold Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a stew pan, combine the beef, parsley, onion, bay leaf, butter, and broth. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Mix in the egg yolks and wine before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they gently set with the warm broth.
Butter
Adds fat and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Strong broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and cooks the beef.
Underdone beef
Provides the main meat, which stays tender when simmered gently rather than boiled.

The step that matters

Mix in the egg yolks and wine before serving. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the liquid is too hot they can scramble into curds. Add them off the heat or at a low simmer, stirring constantly, to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, butter, pepper, egg, wine):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, butter, pepper, egg, wine. 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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