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Braised Beef

Braised beef cooked slowly with butter, broth, gravy, vinegar, optional calf's foot jelly, finished with flour and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. In a pan, cover the beef with butter or clarified dripping to prevent burning.

  2. Cook slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Pour off the grease and add broth, gravy, vinegar, and calf's foot jelly.

  4. Cover the pan and cook for 2 more hours, basting frequently.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. When tender, remove the beef and mix flour with cream.

  2. Stir the mixture into the gravy and season to taste.

  3. Pour some gravy over the beef, reserving part for the next day's dinner.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump beef
Is the main cut that becomes tender through slow, long cooking in liquid.
Broth
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the braising liquid and the gravy.
Rich gravy
Supplies concentrated meaty flavour and moisture for the braise and the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cream and gravy mixture so the finished sauce is smooth and body-rich.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, rounder texture to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Cover the pan and cook for 2 more hours, basting frequently. Long, gentle heat in a covered pan converts tough collagen in the beef into gelatin, which makes it tender. Basting keeps the surface moist so it does not dry out or scorch while the liquid reduces.

“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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