Clear Beef Stock
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Remove the skin from the beef.
Have the butcher break the bone and cut the meat into small pieces.
Simmer the stock
Add the beef pieces to a large pot with 5 quarts of cold water and 2 teaspoons of salt.
Bring the mixture to a slow boil.
Reduce the heat to keep it just below boiling and simmer for 6 to 8 hours, until the meat falls from the bone.
Finish the stock
Strain the stock and cool it quickly.
Once cold, skim off the fat.
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
What each ingredient does
- Beef shin or shank
- Provides meat and bone, which release gelatin and flavour into the water during long simmering.
- Cold water
- Acts as the liquid that slowly extracts collagen and flavour from the beef.
- Salt
- Seasons the stock so its beefy flavour comes through.
The step that matters
Keep the stock just below a boil. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes the stock cloudy and greasy, while a gentle simmer keeps it clear and lets collagen convert to gelatin slowly.
“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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