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Beef, Braised

A slow‑cooked brisket braised with carrots, turnip, celery, leeks, onions, bacon, and a savory sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Beef, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut about ½ cup each of carrot and turnip into small pea-shaped pieces and set aside.

  2. Slice the remaining carrot and turnip, leeks, and celery.

  3. Place the sliced vegetables in a stewpan large enough for the meat.

Braise the brisket

  1. Lay the brisket on top of the vegetables.

  2. Cover the brisket with bacon slices.

  3. Add the bouquet garni, peppercorns, a little salt, and enough stock or water to nearly cover the vegetables.

  4. Cover with a close-fitting lid and cook gently for 4 to 5 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate stewpan, heat the butter.

  2. Add the flour to the butter and stir until well browned.

  3. Add stock, preferably from the larger stewpan, and stir until boiling.

  4. Season to taste and boil for at least 10 minutes, then strain.

Finish and serve

  1. Cook the diced carrot, turnip, and button onions separately in well-flavored stock until tender.

  2. Add the cooked diced vegetables to the sauce or arrange around the meat when 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh brisket of beef
Provides the main meat that becomes tender and rich through long, gentle braising.
Butter
Fat that carries the flavor and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter into a roux.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that flavors the meat and braising liquid as it cooks.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the braise and the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the butter. Stirring the roux until well browned develops nutty, deep flavor and color. Stopping early leaves a raw floury taste, while over-browning can taste bitter and lose thickening power.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, parsley, thyme. 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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