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A Fricandeau of Beef

A beef stew with bacon larding, seasoned with pepper, cloves, mace, allspice, garlic, and herbs, then glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Fricandeau of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lard the beef with bacon.

  2. Season the beef with pepper, cloves, mace, allspice, and garlic.

Stew

  1. Place the beef in a stew pan with broth, white wine, parsley, sweet herbs, shallot, whole cloves, and salt.

  2. Stew the beef until it is perfectly tender.

  3. Cover the stew closely.

  4. Skim the sauce.

  5. Strain the sauce.

Glaze and serve

  1. Boil the sauce until it is reduced to a glaze.

  2. Glaze the larded side of the beef with the sauce.

  3. Serve with the remaining 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender through slow, moist cooking.
Bacon
Lards the beef, adding fat and savory flavor that moistens the meat as it cooks.
Broth
Provides the liquid in which the beef stews, carrying flavor into the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the sauce as it reduces.
Shallot
Contributes a mild, sweet onion flavor to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until it is reduced to a glaze. Reducing concentrates the sauce's flavor and thickens it through evaporation. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin, while overcooking can scorch the sugars and make it bitter.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, allspice, garlic, white wine, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, allspice, garlic, white wine, 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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