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Pot-au-feu, Ob Soup

A French beef stew made with ox cheek, vegetables, and herbs simmered for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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, Ob Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Put 6 quarts of water in a large pot.

  2. Tie the beef or ox-cheek into a shape with string and place it in the pot.

  3. Bring the water to a boil.

  4. Once boiling, add the salt and reduce heat to simmer.

  5. Wash the carrots, leeks, turnips, parsnip, and celery in cold water.

  6. Scrape the carrots and parsnip, then cut them into quarters.

  7. Trim the green leaves from the leeks, using only the white part.

  8. Cut off the green tops of the celery.

  9. Tie the leeks, celery, carrots, and parsnip together with string.

  10. Cut the cabbage in half, wash it thoroughly, and tie it with string.

  11. Tie the bay leaf, parsley, thyme, and marjoram together with string.

  12. Peel the onion and insert the cloves.

Cook

  1. Skim the pot occasionally.

  2. After simmering gently for 2 hours, add all the vegetables except the cabbage.

  3. Add the tied herbs to the pot.

  4. Add the onion to the pot.

  5. After 2 more hours, add the cabbage.

  6. After a total of 4 hours, remove the meat.

  7. Place the meat on a hot dish.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or ox-cheek meat
Provides the main body of the broth and the tender meat served as the centerpiece.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color to the broth as they cook slowly.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the broth.
Cabbage
Absorbs the broth's flavor and adds a soft, sweet vegetable texture.

The step that matters

Skim the pot occasionally. Foam and fat that rise during simmering can cloud the broth and taste greasy, so removing them keeps the broth clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

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