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Pot-au-feu

A slow‑cooked beef stew with vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot-au-feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the meat into a thick shape and place it in a pot with water over gentle heat.

Simmer

  1. Allow the meat to warm gradually for 5-7 hours without boiling.

  2. Remove the scum that forms on top after about an hour.

  3. Cover the pot and let it simmer.

  4. Add salt, peppercorns, carrots, turnips, parsnip, onions, and pastille de légumes.

  5. Add old fowl or roast meat bones if desired.

  6. Add Savoy cabbage if desired, but be cautious as it may sour the broth.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 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

Meat
Slow, gentle cooking turns the tough cut tender while the broth develops its flavor.
Carrots
Release natural sweetness and aroma into the broth as they simmer.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a soft texture to the finished pot.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Keep the broth below a boil. Gentle heat lets the meat warm slowly so its proteins firm up without seizing and toughening, and keeps the broth clear rather than cloudy.

Swap the cabbage

The recipe marks cabbage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, turnip, parsnip, onion, clove, garlic):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, parsnip, onion, clove, garlic. 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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