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Soup Stock

A clear broth made by simmering meat, bone, salt, pepper, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Meat and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,777 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Have the bone sawed into small pieces.

  2. Wipe the meat, trim off the fat, and cut into 1-inch cubes.

Brown the meat

  1. Put the fat into the bottom of a soup kettle and heat it.

  2. Add half the meat cubes and brown them with the fat.

  3. Add the remaining meat and the bone, then cover with cold water.

Simmer and finish

  1. Soak for 1 hour, then cook just below boiling for 4 hours.

  2. Skim off the fat, strain out the meat and bone, and add salt and pepper.

  3. You may add any desired vegetables to the stock.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat and bone
Release flavor and body into the water during the long simmer.
Cold water
Forms the liquid that extracts flavor from the meat and bone.

The step that matters

Cook just below boiling. Keeping the stock at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil yields a clearer stock, since vigorous boiling emulsifies fat and clouds the liquid.

“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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