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Pot-au-feu

A traditional French beef stew simmered slowly with vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Tie the meat into a thick shape and place it in a pot with water over low heat.

  2. Allow the meat to warm gradually for 5-7 hours without boiling.

  3. Remove the scum that forms on the surface after about an hour.

  4. Once the scum is removed, cover the pot and let it simmer.

  5. Add salt, peppercorns, carrots, turnips, parsnip, and onions.

  6. If desired, add a small bouquet of herbs.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main flavour and, as it cooks slowly, rich savoury juices for the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Keeping the water below a boil. Gentle heat lets the meat warm slowly so its proteins relax and it stays tender. A rolling boil toughens the meat and makes the broth cloudy and greasy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, turnip, parsnip, onion, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, parsnip, onion, garlic. 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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