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Fricassee of Cold Roast Beef

A fricassee made from thinly sliced cold roast beef, parsley, onion, butter, broth, egg yolks, port wine, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Cold Roast Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into very thin slices.

  2. Shred a handful of parsley finely.

  3. Rub the serving dish with shallot.

Make the fricassee

  1. Quarter an onion and place it in a stewpan with butter and strong broth.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  3. Mix in the yolks of two eggs, a glass of port wine, and a spoonful of vinegar. Stir quickly.

  4. Pour the fricassee into the serving dish.

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

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Provides the meat that forms the body of the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture as they warm.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives a silky mouthfeel.
Strong broth
Supplies the savoury liquid base that the beef simmers in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolks in quickly. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but if they get too hot they scramble into lumps. Stirring quickly spreads the yolks evenly through the warm liquid so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, butter, pepper, egg, port wine, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, butter, pepper, egg, port wine, vinegar. 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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