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Braised Beef

Braised beef with salt pork, onions, carrot, turnip, and herbs, simmered in water and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Lard the beef with the salt pork.

  2. Place 6 slices of pork in the bottom of a braising pan and heat until frying.

  3. Add the onions, carrot, and turnip; cook until browned.

  4. Move vegetables to the side and add the beef, dredged with salt, pepper, and flour.

  5. Brown the beef on all sides.

Braise

  1. Add boiling water and bouquet of sweet herbs, cover, and cook in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 4 hours, basting every 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef and finish the gravy as for braised tongue or add half a can of tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the gravy, pour around the beef, and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef (in the method)
Is the main cut that becomes tender through long, slow braising with moisture.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the pan and adds savory richness to the beef and gravy.
Onions
Brown in the pan and build sweetness and depth for the gravy.
Flour
Coats the beef so it browns well and helps thicken the gravy.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic body to the braising liquid.
Turnip
Adds mild earthy flavor and body to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the beef on all sides. Searing creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction, which adds depth to the gravy. Pale meat gives a flatter taste, so the surface should be well colored before adding liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, turnip, pepper, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, turnip, pepper, flour. 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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