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Boiled Beef

Boiled beef simmered with onions, carrots, turnips, peppercorns, and bouquet garni, optionally served with suet dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Boiled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose a shank, round, or brisket for boiling.

  2. Skewer or bind the meat with string into a compact form.

  3. Use a pot just large enough to cover the meat with water.

  4. If the meat is very salty, start with cold water; otherwise, use warm water.

Boil

  1. Gradually heat the water to boiling and skim off any foam.

  2. Add whole onions after skimming.

  3. Add thick slices of turnips after skimming.

  4. Add cut carrots after skimming.

  5. If using suet dumplings, add them to the boiling liquid one hour before serving.

Serve

  1. Replace string and skewers with silver skewers.

  2. Pour some liquid around the dish.

  3. Garnish with vegetables.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Salt beef
Is the main meat, which is cooked slowly in water until tender.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid as they simmer.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the broth and the dish.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a firm, earthy texture after long simmering.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam as the water heats. Foam is made of coagulated proteins and impurities released from the meat. Removing it as the water reaches boiling keeps the broth clear and prevents off flavours from returning into the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme. 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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