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Boiled Beef

Boiled beef with turnips, carrots, onions, leeks, and poultry bones, served with parsley or sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Boiled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bone and tie the rump of beef together neatly.

  2. Place it in a pot with the odd bits of butcher's meat and any bones or feet.

  3. Fill the pot with water, but not completely, and place it on moderate heat.

Cook

  1. Skim the surface gently as it boils.

  2. After a short time, add salt, turnips, carrots, and the onion with cloves.

  3. Add a bunch of leeks and let it boil gently until the beef is perfectly done.

Serve

  1. Remove the beef and serve with fresh parsley, sauce, or vegetables.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  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

Rump of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Bones, feet, and necks of poultry or game
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth as they simmer.
Turnips
Add sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth as they cook.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour to the broth and vegetables as they cook.
Onions
Add aroma and savoury depth to the broth; the clove-studded onion flavours it further.
Leeks
Add mild onion aroma and sweetness to the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface as it boils. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer and skimming off foam and fat keeps the broth clear and the meat tender rather than tough and cloudy.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, turnip, carrot, onion, leek. 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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