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Beef, Brisket of

A slow‑cooked beef brisket stew with bacon, vegetables, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef, Brisket of

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the brisket

  1. Cover the bottom of a stewpan with slices of bacon.

  2. Place the brisket of beef in the stewpan.

  3. Lay more bacon slices on top of the brisket.

  4. Add the bouquet-garni, cloves, mace, allspice, peppercorns, and some vegetable trimmings.

  5. Nearly cover with stock or water.

  6. Cook gently for 5 to 6 hours.

  7. Add more stock or water as needed to keep it covered.

Make the sauce and vegetables

  1. Make the brown sauce using the stock from the stewpan if available.

  2. Cut the vegetables into dice.

  3. Cook the diced vegetables in stock or water until tender.

  4. Add the cooked vegetables to the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Glaze the meat.

  2. Garnish with a little vegetable.

  3. Serve on a hot 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 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 through slow, moist cooking.
Slices of bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the meat and stock as it cooks.
Brown sauce
Forms the rich, savoury sauce that is served with the braised meat.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the sauce and vegetable garnish.
Onion
Adds aromatic depth and sweetness as the vegetables soften.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 5 to 6 hours. Low, gentle heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in brisket slowly. Boiling vigorously can toughen the meat and dry the liquid, so the stewpan should only simmer and be topped up to stay covered.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, clove, allspice. 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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