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Brown Soup Stock

A beef stock made by simmering shin bones with water, peppercorns, cloves, salt, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley, and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Soup Stock

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 ↓

Brown Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place half the meat and the bones in a large pot with the cold water.

  2. Brown the remaining meat and vegetables in a skillet, then add them to the pot.

  3. Add the peppercorns, cloves, salt, and parsley.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours.

  2. Strain the stock and discard solids before using.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Provides meat and collagen that give the stock body and savoury flavour as it simmers.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth when browned and simmered into the stock.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and aroma to the stock's background flavour.
Turnip
Adds mild earthy sweetness and aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil lets the stock stay clear while collagen and flavour slowly release from the bones and meat.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, onion, carrot, turnip, parsley):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Cuminfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, onion, carrot, turnip, 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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