Name: To Fricassee Cold Roast Beef
Ingredients: cold roast beef; butter; strong broth; pepper; coarse sea salt; 2 egg yolks; ⅓ cup port wine; 1 tablespoon vinegar; 1 shallot

Why it works: Port wine and shallot work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 380 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Fricassee Cold Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

Cut the cold roast beef into slices.
Shred a handful of parsley and quarter an onion.
In a pan, combine the beef, parsley, onion, butter, strong broth, pepper, and salt.
Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Finish and serve

Add the egg yolks, port wine, and vinegar, stirring quickly.
Rub a dish with shallot and pour the fricassee into it.

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.

Port wine + shallottop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together380 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,374 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef: Provides the meat that the dish is built around, becoming tender as it gently simmers.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Strong broth: Supplies liquid and savoury depth, keeping the beef moist during simmering.
Egg yolks: Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a creamy, cohesive texture.
Port wine: Adds sweetness and deep fruity flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that balances the richness of the butter and yolks.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks, port wine, and vinegar. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if they get too hot. Stirring quickly while adding them spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the shallot

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

Capsicumfits better
Shallotthe original
Onionfits about as well
Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, egg, port wine, vinegar. 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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To Fricassee Cold Roast Beef