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Stock for Brown Sauce

A rich beef and veal stock flavored with ham, onion, carrot, tomato, and aromatics, thickened with flour or arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stock for Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Place shredded onions, sliced carrot, and tomatoes in a stock pot.

  2. Add ham fat and a little dripping. Simmer for 15 minutes without coloring.

  3. Add beef, veal, and chicken carcass. Fill with 2 gallons of water.

  4. Add bouquet garni, celery, and peppercorn.

  5. Boil for 5 hours. Skim fat. Replenish with boiling water as needed.

  6. Strain through a coarse strainer.

  7. Let the liquid sit overnight to remove fat.

Thicken and finish

  1. Bring the strained liquid to a boil in a clean stock pot.

  2. Dissolve fecule flour in ⅓ cup of Sherry or Madeira. Slowly add to the boiling stock while stirring until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat. Let it boil quietly for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Add coloring until a light brown is achieved. Strain through fine muslin.

  5. Place the sauce in a large basin. Stir occasionally until cold to prevent fermentation.

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.

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 + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  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 knuckle
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the stock during long simmering.
Veal knuckle
Adds gelatin and body, giving the finished stock a richer mouthfeel.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as they cook down.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savory depth that balances the rich meat flavors.
Fecule flour or arrowroot
Thickens the boiling stock into a smooth, glossy sauce body.

The step that matters

Slowly add the dissolved starch to the boiling stock while stirring. Starch must be dispersed evenly as it heats, or it clumps into lumps instead of thickening smoothly. Stirring while adding prevents lumps and gives an even sauce body.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, chicken, onion, carrot, tomato):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, chicken, onion, carrot, tomato. 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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