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Plain Stock

A clear beef stock made by simmering a beef leg or shin with vegetables and optional trimmings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Plain Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef leg or shin thoroughly.

  2. Cover the beef with water in a large pot.

  3. Boil slowly, skimming off any scum that forms.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add salt to taste, along with the carrot, celery, turnips, and onions.

  2. Simmer gently for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Strain the stock 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.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 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 leg or shin
Releases collagen and flavour into the water, giving the stock body and depth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook slowly in the liquid.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Celery
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Boiling slowly and skimming off the foam that rises as the pot heats removes impurities that would otherwise cloud the stock and taint its flavour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, celery, turnip, rabbit, mutton, veal. 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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