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Pot-au-Feu

A traditional French boiled beef and vegetable soup made with beef, bones, herbs, and root vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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. Place the bones in a large pot, followed by the neatly tied beef.

  2. Put the herbs and spices in a muslin bag and add to the pot with cold water.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a gradual boil, skimming the surface frequently.

  2. Once boiling, add the vegetables gradually to maintain temperature.

  3. Allow to boil slowly for 4 to 5 hours until the liquid is clear and pale golden-brown.

  4. Optionally, color the soup with browning salt or liquid browning, using sparingly.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with croutons and some of the vegetables cut into strips or dice.

  2. If serving the meat hot, arrange it with the vegetables around it and serve with sauce.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides rich meat flavor and tender meat as it cooks slowly in the broth.
Bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the broth, giving it body.
Leeks
Add mild, sweet onion-like flavor to the broth.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the broth and vegetables.

The step that matters

Keeping the simmer slow and steady. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a rolling boil emulsifies fat and cloudies the liquid. Skimming foam as it rises removes impurities that would otherwise muddy the soup.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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