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Boiled Beef

A pot of beef simmered with carrots, turnips, onions, celery, peppercorns, cloves, and herbs, served with the broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Boiled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the beef in a large pot on a fish drainer.

  2. Add enough water to cover the meat and bring to a boil over high heat.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

Simmer

  1. Once clear, add the carrots, turnips, onions, celery, peppercorns, cloves, and herbs.

  2. Bring back to a boil, then reduce heat and cover to simmer gently for 4-6 hours, depending on the cut of meat.

  3. After an hour, remove the vegetables, trim the best parts, and return the trimmings to the pot.

Serve

  1. When the meat is tender, carefully transfer it to a deep dish and keep warm.

  2. Strain the gravy and serve with the meat.

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. 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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 brisket, blade bone, leg, or shin
Collagen-rich connective tissue breaks down during long simmering, making the meat tender and flavorful.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness and aromatic flavor into the broth as they cook.
Onions or leeks
Contribute savory, aromatic depth to the broth and gravy.
Celery
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma that rounds out the broth.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body to the broth while cooking.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum before simmering. Proteins and impurities that rise during the initial boil coagulate into grey scum. Removing them before the long simmer keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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