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 Clear Broth That Will Keep Long
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and bake
Place the beef, veal, and mutton in a deep pan.
Cover tightly with a dish or coarse crust.
Bake until the beef is tender, adding just enough water to cover the meat.
Cool and serve
Once cooled, store in a cool place until needed.
When ready to serve, add any desired flavoring.
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.
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Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,373 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Beef
- Provides the main meaty flavor, and its tender meat becomes part of the finished broth.
- Veal knuckle-bone
- Bones and connective tissue release gelatin during long cooking, giving the broth body.
- Mutton
- Adds savory, meaty flavor and some body from its connective tissue as it cooks.
The step that matters
Covering tightly and baking with just enough water. A tight cover keeps steam and moisture in, so the liquid does not evaporate during the slow bake. Using only enough water to cover the meat keeps the broth concentrated in flavor and gelatin rather than diluted.
“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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