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Brisket and Carrots

A slow‑cooked stew of beef brisket and carrots, thickened with flour, vinegar, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Brisket and Carrots

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Place the brisket in a pot with 1 pint of water, salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. Add the carrots and garlic.

  3. Cook for 3 hours until the beef and carrots are tender.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix flour with vinegar and parsley to thicken the stew, then add the thickening to the pot and stir until combined.

  2. Adjust color with browning if desired.

  3. Serve with the beef in the center and carrots arranged around.

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

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during long, slow cooking.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew while holding their shape during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, looser sauce as it is stirred in.
Vinegar
Adds a slight acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich stew.

The step that matters

Thickening the stew. Flour must be mixed with vinegar and parsley before it goes into the pot, and stirred in fully; added dry or unstirred it clumps and leaves floury lumps instead of a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, carrot, clove, garlic, flour, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, carrot, clove, garlic, flour, vinegar, parsley. 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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