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
Procure a piece of brisket of beef that has been in salt for about a week or ten days.
Wash the beef in cold water.
Place the beef in a large oval braising pan.
Garnish the pan with three carrots, two onions with cloves, and two heads of celery.
Pour enough cold water to nearly fill the pan.
Boil
Bring the water to a boil.
Skim off the scum as it rises.
Reduce the heat to a gentle boil for about 4 to 5 hours, depending on the size of the brisket.
Trim, glaze and serve
Transfer the beef to an earthenware dish.
Trim the beef.
Glaze the beef.
Garnish with boiled turnips and carrots shaped like pears or leaves.
Place small suet dumplings at each end.
Pour some gravy under the beef.
Serve.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
-
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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 connective tissue softens into tender slices during long gentle boiling.
- Salt cure (brisket)
- Seasons the beef and firms its texture during the week or ten days it rests in salt.
- Carrots
- Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the cooking water as a garnish and flavouring.
- Onions
- Release savoury sweetness and aroma into the cooking liquid, flavoured with cloves.
- Celery
- Adds aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid and garnish.
The step that matters
Keep the water at a gentle boil. A hard, rapid boil toughens meat proteins and breaks the surface, while a gentle simmer lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin, keeping the brisket tender and moist over the long cook.
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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