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Pot Au Feu

A French beef stew made by boiling beef and vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pot Au Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the beef, break them up, and place them in a large pot.

  2. Tie the meat into a neat shape and lay it on top of the bones, adding salt and water.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming off the scum, then add a little cold water and repeat twice.

  2. Add the chopped vegetables and bring to a boil again, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 3 hours.

  3. Remove all vegetables and serve them alongside the meat in a tureen.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Beef
Provides the rich meat and the flavour that the broth absorbs during long simmering.
Beef bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the broth during the long simmer.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Leeks
Contribute a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after the first boil. Bringing the water to a boil releases proteins and fat that form scum. Skimming it off keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, and adding a little cold water helps the impurities rise to the surface.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Leekthe original
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Lettucefits less well

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