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Pot-au-Feu

A traditional French dish of boiled beef, bones, vegetables, and giblets simmered in salted water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pot-au-Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the stock pot by scalding it with hot water and a lump of washing soda.

  2. Place the bones at the bottom of the stock pot.

  3. Layer the meat over the bones and cover with cold water.

  4. Let it stand for 30 minutes.

Make the broth

  1. Add the vegetables and giblets to the pot.

  2. Pour in 1½ quarts of cold water to cover the meat and bones.

  3. Bring to a simmer and cook gently, avoiding sudden temperature changes.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavours the broth as it cooks.
Bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth over a long gentle cook.
Vegetables
Add sweetness and aromatic flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Bring to a simmer and cook gently. Boiling vigorously or sudden temperature changes toughen the meat and cloud the broth. A slow, steady simmer keeps the meat tender and the stock clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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