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Soup

Portable Soup

A simple bone broth made from beef shin, veal knuckle, and cow heels, simmered to remove scum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Portable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the bones of the beef, veal, and cow heels.

  2. Place them in a large soup pot.

Skim the stock

  1. Cover the meat with water and heat gradually until nearly boiling.

  2. Skim off any scum that rises.

  3. Pour in 1 quart of cold water to help remove remaining scum.

  4. Allow it to come to a boil again and skim carefully until no more scum rises.

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 + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Provides meat and bone for a rich, savory body in the stock.
Veal knuckle
Adds gelatin-rich bone and connective tissue for body and mouthfeel in the stock.
Cow heels
Contribute collagen-rich bone and connective tissue that give the soup body.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it as it forms keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, so skim thoroughly before it is allowed to boil hard.

“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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