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Fricassee of Beetroot

A beetroot fricassee cooked with butter, herbs, leeks, garlic, flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and leek share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Beetroot

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beetroot

  1. Boil the beetroot in salted water until tender.

Cook the fricassee

  1. Slice the beetroot and place in a saucepan with butter, chopped parsley, chives, sweet leeks, and garlic.

  2. Add a pinch of flour, salt, pepper, and vinegar to taste.

  3. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes.

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. Chive + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Beetroot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together172 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beetroot + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Chive + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beetroot
Forms the main body of the dish and gives it its earthy flavour and colour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the sautéed vegetables.
Flour
Lightly thickens the cooking juices so they cling to the vegetables.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the beetroot and leeks.
Sweet leeks
Add mild sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be a small pinch, stirred in before the liquid comes to a boil. Too much or added unevenly can leave lumps or a pasty texture, and it thickens the juices only lightly.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beetroot, butter, parsley, chive, leek, flour, pepper):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, butter, parsley, chive, leek, flour, pepper. 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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