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Bouillon

A clear beef stock made with butter, beef, vegetables, and egg white, strained and served as a broth.

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

Make the stock

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the onion and cook until brown.

  3. Stir in the beef, celery, cloves, carrot, bay leaf, and parsley.

  4. Pour in the cold water, cover, and let simmer gently for 3 hours.

  5. Strain the mixture.

Clarify and strain

  1. Return the liquid to the kettle.

  2. Bring the bouillon to a boil.

  3. Beat the egg white with ½ cup of cold water until mixed.

  4. Crush the eggshell and add it to the egg mixture.

  5. Add this to the boiling bouillon and boil for 4 minutes.

  6. Let it sit on the back of the stove for 1 minute to settle.

  7. Strain through cheesecloth.

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. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Beef
Releases flavor and body into the liquid during the long, gentle simmer.
Egg white
Coagulates when heated, trapping cloudy particles so the bouillon clears.
Onion
Browning it first adds deeper, sweeter savory flavor to the stock.
Butter
Adds fat for a rounder mouthfeel and helps brown the onion.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling bouillon. Once the egg white is added, the liquid should be left undisturbed while it boils. As the egg coagulates it forms a raft that traps cloudy particles. Stirring breaks the raft and keeps the bouillon cloudy.

Swap the clove

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

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

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