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Pressed Beef

Pressed Beef is a boiled and pressed beef dish served with glaze.

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 ↓

Pressed Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef well in cold water.

  2. Place the beef in a saucepan and cover with warm water.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, then add the sliced vegetables, bouquet garni, and peppercorns.

  2. Simmer gently until the bones can be easily removed.

Press and serve

  1. Remove the meat from the saucepan and take out the bones.

  2. Press the meat between two boards or dishes until cold.

  3. Brush the meat with glaze before serving.

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

Brisket of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and holds together when pressed after slow simmering.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid that flavours the meat.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid that flavours the meat.
Turnip
Adds mild earthy flavour to the cooking liquid that flavours the meat.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the bones can be easily removed. A rolling boil toughens the meat's muscle fibres and breaks the meat apart, while gentle simmering slowly dissolves connective tissue into gelatin, so the meat becomes tender and stays in good pieces for pressing.

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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