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Bouilli.— Boiled Beef

A boiled beef dish with assorted meats, poultry bones, turnips, carrots, onions, and leeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Bouilli.— Boiled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bone and tie the rump of beef together neatly.

  2. Place it in a pot with the odd bits of meat and any poultry or game bones.

Cook

  1. Fill the pot with water, not quite full, and skim gently.

  2. After boiling for a short time, add salt, turnips, carrots, and onions.

  3. Add the bunch of leeks and let it boil gently until the beef is fully cooked.

Serve

  1. Remove the beef and serve it with fresh parsley, sauce, or vegetables.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  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

Rump of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Poultry or game bones
Add savoury depth to the broth as they simmer.
Turnips
Soften during simmering and add a mild, earthy sweetness to the broth.
Carrots
Soften during simmering and add natural sweetness to the broth.
Onions
Soften and release sweetness and aroma into the broth.

The step that matters

Let it boil gently. Keeping the pot at a gentle simmer rather than a hard rolling boil lets the collagen in the beef break down slowly, so the meat turns tender without becoming stringy or dry. Skimming foam keeps the broth clear.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, turnip, carrot, onion, leek. 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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