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Good Bouillon

A beef broth made with brisket, bay leaf, onion, cloves, tomatoes, pepper, salt, and chicken stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Good Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cook the brisket beef all day until tender.

  2. Once cool, skim off the fat and strain the broth.

Finish the bouillon

  1. Heat the broth and add the bay leaf, onion, cloves, strained tomatoes, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Finally, stir in the chicken stock and heat through.

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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

Brisket beef
Long cooking breaks down collagen into gelatin, giving the broth body and tender meat.
Chicken stock
Adds savory liquid and body to the broth.
Strained tomatoes
Add acidity and a savory tang that balances the rich beef.

The step that matters

Skim the fat after cooling. Fat left in the broth stays greasy and can taste heavy. Chilling or cooling lets the fat rise and set on the surface, so it can be lifted off cleanly before straining.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, tomato, pepper, chicken. 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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