Name: Boiled Brisket of Beef, a L'anglaise
Ingredients: 1 piece of brisket of beef, well covered with fat; 3 carrots; 2 large onions, each with 2 cloves stuck in; 2 heads of celery; cold water; plain boiled turnips and carrots, cut into shapes; small suet dumplings; gravy

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Boiled Brisket of Beef, a L'anglaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

Soak the brisket in salt for about a week or ten days.
Wash the beef in cold water and place it in a large oval braising pan.
Garnish with carrots, onions, and celery.
Add enough cold water to nearly fill the pan and bring to a boil.

Boil

Skim off the scum as it rises, then reduce heat to a gentle boil for 4 to 5 hours.

Finish and serve

Once cooked, transfer the beef to an earthenware dish, trim, and glaze.
Garnish with boiled turnips and carrots shaped like pears or leaves, and add small suet dumplings at each end.
Pour some gravy under the beef and serve.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 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

Brisket of beef: Provides the main meat, whose fat layer keeps the slices moist during long simmering.
Suet: Melts into the dumplings, making them rich, tender and light.
Onions: Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid around the beef.
Carrots: Add sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid and garnish the finished dish.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum while the water comes to a boil. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface; removing it as it forms keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting over the long simmer.

Swap the clove

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

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, celery, turnip. 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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Boiled Brisket of Beef, a L'anglaise