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Soup Stock

A clear beef stock made by simmering lean beef in cold water with salt and pepper for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and skim

  1. Wash the meat.

  2. Place it in cold water without salt.

  3. Slowly bring to a boil.

  4. Skim well before the water agitates.

  5. Add a little salt and a dash of cold water to help the scum rise.

  6. Skim again.

Simmer

  1. Let it boil gently for 6 to 8 hours until the meat is in rags.

  2. Add a little pepper.

Strain and chill

  1. Strain into a stone jar.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Remove all the grease.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavour and dissolves gelatin and proteins into the liquid, giving body to the stock.
Cold water
Extracts flavour slowly from the meat when it starts cold, and carries the scum to the surface for skimming.

The step that matters

Skim well before the water agitates. Scum and fine impurities rise as the water heats. Removing them early keeps the stock clear. If the water boils hard first, the scum breaks up and mixes in, leaving the stock cloudy.

“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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