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Brisket of Beef, Stewed German Fashion

A German-style stew of brisket, cabbage, onions, and sausages simmered with herbs and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Brisket of Beef, Stewed German Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the brisket into 3–4 equal pieces and boil in water for a few minutes.

  2. Boil half a large cabbage in another pan for 15 minutes.

Stew

  1. Stew the meat with broth, parsley, scallions, garlic, thyme, basil, and bay leaf.

  2. After an hour, add the cabbage (cut into 3 pieces and squeezed) and 3 large onions.

  3. When nearly done, add 4 sausages, salt, and whole pepper, and let it stew until the sauce is nearly consumed.

Serve

  1. Remove the meat and vegetables, wipe off the grease, and arrange them on a plate with beef in the center, onions and cabbage around, and sausages on top.

  2. Strain the sauce through a sieve, skim off the fat, and serve it over the 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Clove + thymetop 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
Slow stewing turns its connective tissue tender, giving the meat a juicy, pull-apart texture.
Cabbage
Softens during stewing and absorbs the savory broth, adding body and mild sweetness.
Sausages
Release fat and seasoning into the sauce while cooking, adding savoury depth.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and thickening the sauce slightly.

The step that matters

Adding the sausages and finishing the sauce. Sausages release fat and salt as they cook, so seasoning should wait until near the end. Reducing the sauce until nearly consumed concentrates flavour, but over-reducing can make it salty and dry.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, clove, garlic, thyme, basil, onion. 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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