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Bouillon

A beef broth made by simmering beef, vegetables, and seasonings, finished with an egg white and shell mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Bouillon

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and simmer

  1. Melt the butter in a kettle, add the onion, and cook until thoroughly brown.

  2. Add the beef, bay leaf, celery, carrot, cloves, parsley, and cold water.

  3. Cover the pot.

  4. Let the mixture simmer gently for three hours.

Strain and clarify

  1. Strain the mixture.

  2. Return the liquid to the kettle.

  3. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  4. Beat the egg white with ½ cup cold water.

  5. Crush the shell and add it to the egg.

  6. Add the egg mixture to the boiling bouillon.

  7. Let the bouillon boil for one minute.

  8. Set the bouillon on the back of the stove to settle.

Final strain

  1. Strain the bouillon through cheesecloth wrung out in cold water.

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

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Releases meat flavor and body into the broth as it simmers for hours.
Egg white
Coagulates when heated and traps cloudy particles so the broth clears.
Onion
Browns to add deeper, sweeter savory flavor to the broth.
Butter
Carries fat that helps the onion brown and adds richness to the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic depth as it simmers.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, herbal aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling bouillon. The egg white proteins set as they heat and trap cloudy particles, forming a raft that clears the broth. Boiling only briefly and then letting it settle lets that raft hold the impurities for straining.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, celery, carrot, egg, beef, onion, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, celery, carrot, egg, beef, onion, 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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