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Braised Beef

A slow‑cooked brisket with carrots, turnips, celery, leek, onions, and a brown butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Cut the carrot and turnip into small shapes and set aside.

  2. Slice the remaining carrot, turnip, leek, and celery.

  3. Place the sliced vegetables in a stewpan large enough for the meat.

Braise the beef

  1. Lay the brisket on top of the vegetables and cover with bacon slices.

  2. Add the bouquet garni, peppercorns, a little salt, and enough stock or water to nearly cover the vegetables.

  3. Cover with a close-fitting lid and cook gently for 4 to 5 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the butter in a separate pan.

  2. Add the flour and cook slowly until browned.

  3. Add stock from the larger stewpan.

  4. Stir until boiling.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Boil for at least 10 minutes.

  7. Strain the sauce.

Cook the garnish and serve

  1. Cook the diced carrot, turnip, and button onions separately in well-flavored stock until tender.

  2. Add the cooked vegetables to the sauce or arrange around the meat.

  3. Serve with the meat.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Fresh brisket of beef
Is the main cut that becomes tender and rich during long, gentle braising.
Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux, the base that thickens the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in butter, and browning adds a nutty flavor.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savory fat that flavors the meat and the braising liquid.
Carrot
Sweetens the braising liquid and adds body as it softens during cooking.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Cooking the roux slowly until browned develops flavor and must be done gently; if cooked too fast it can scorch, and if stock is added too early or without stirring, lumps can form.

Swap the onion

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

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

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