Name: A Dear Broth That Will Keep Long
Ingredients: 2 pounds mouse round of beef; 1 knuckle bone of veal; a few shanks of mutton; water (enough to cover the meat)

Why it works: Beef and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Dear Broth That Will Keep Long

Ingredients

2 pounds mouse round of beef
1 knuckle bone of veal
a few shanks of mutton
water (enough to cover the meat)

Directions

Prepare and bake

Place the beef, veal knuckle, and mutton shanks in a deep pan.
Cover tightly with a dish or coarse crust.
Bake until the beef is cooked through.

Store and use

Once cooled, store in a cool place.
When ready to use, add desired flavoring.

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.

Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,373 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,784 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together936 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,394 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mouse round of beef: Provides the main meaty flavor and some body as its connective tissue softens during slow cooking.
Knuckle bone of veal: Releases gelatin into the liquid, giving the broth a fuller body and mouthfeel.
Shanks of mutton: Add richer, deeper meat flavor and contribute gelatin to the broth.

“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.