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Restorative Broth

A nourishing broth made from beef, veal, mutton, calf foot, and vegetables, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Restorative Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef, veal, mutton, small piece of meat, water, spice bag, long pepper, whole pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon peel, celery, carrots, onions, and turnips.

  2. Gently stir the mixture and simmer for six hours.

  3. Strain the broth and set aside.

Add the calf's foot and serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, boil the calf's foot in 1 pint of water until tender.

  2. Add the meat from the calf's foot to the strained broth while hot.

  3. If desired, stir in a little sherry before serving.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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 neck
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the long-simmered broth.
Veal neck
Adds body and gelatin, giving the broth a fuller texture.
Mutton neck
Contributes rich, meaty flavor and gelatin to the broth.
Calf's foot
Provides collagen that turns to gelatin, enriching the broth's body and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for six hours. A gentle simmer extracts collagen and flavor slowly while keeping the broth clear; a hard boil emulsifies fat and cloudies the liquid.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, mutton, pepper, celery, carrot, onion):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Cherryfits less well
  4. Mangofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, pepper, celery, carrot, 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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