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A hearty stew of veal or stewing beef with herbs, carrots, leeks or onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,310 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Roll and bind the meat firmly.

  2. Place it in a stewpan or thick iron saucepan.

  3. For added flavor, brown the beef in butter before adding broth or water.

  4. Add bones and enough beef broth to nearly cover the joint.

  5. If broth is unavailable, place slices of ham or bacon under the beef and add cold water.

Stew

  1. Boil for a few minutes, skimming off any scum.

  2. Add the faggot of herbs, carrots, leeks or onion, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

  4. Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours, longer if the joint is large.

Finish and serve

  1. Serve with Espagnole sauce, sauce piquante, or brown caper sauce.

  2. After removing the meat, boil down the cooking liquid to make soup or gravy.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Beef + leektop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef neck or knuckle
Collagen from the bones and connective tissue breaks down during long stewing, giving body and tenderness.
Beef broth
Supplies savory flavor and liquid that gently cooks the meat and later forms the gravy base.
Butter
Browning the meat in butter adds color and toasty, roasted flavor to the finished stew.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid as they soften.
Leeks or onion
Build aromatic savory depth in the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer, not a hard boil, lets collagen convert to gelatin slowly, so the meat turns tender instead of tough and stringy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, beef, carrot, leek, butter. 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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