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Bouillon

A clear veal broth made with bone, meat, vegetables, sugar, and seasonings, served with lemon or parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Bouillon

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe the meat and chop it finely.

  2. Add cold water and let it stand for half an hour.

  3. Simmer slowly for five hours without boiling.

  4. Chop the vegetables.

Make the broth

  1. Brown the sugar in a pot.

  2. Add the onion and stir until brown.

  3. Add the vegetables and seasoning to the soup.

  4. Simmer for one hour longer.

  5. Strain the soup.

  6. Cool the strained soup.

  7. Remove the fat.

  8. Reheat the soup.

  9. Before it boils, stir in the whites of two slightly beaten eggs.

  10. Bring to a boil.

  11. Strain through a napkin.

  12. Salt to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve in cups with half a thin slice of lemon or a small sprig of parsley in each cup.

  2. Optionally, add a wine glass of sherry for flavor.

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

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

  2. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites (in the method)
Coagulate as they heat, gathering particles into a clearer broth when strained.
Soup bone
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth during long simmering.
Veal knuckle
Adds collagen that gives the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Soup meat
Lends meaty flavor and richness to the broth as it simmers.
Sugar
Browns to caramel, adding color and a subtle deep sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites before boiling. Egg whites must be stirred in before the broth boils so they coagulate slowly and trap cloudy particles; if the broth boils too early, they set into scattered bits and the clarifying effect is lost.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sugar, celery, parsley, clove, meat, onion):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sugar, celery, parsley, clove, meat, onion. 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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