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Brown Stock

A beef stock made by simmering shin, carrots, onions, turnip, celery, and spices for five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Brown Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut all the meat from the bone, remove the marrow, and break the bone with a hammer.

  2. In a large saucepan, combine the meat and bone, then pour in 5 pints of cold water.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil and skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  2. Add the salt to bring any remaining scum to the top and skim again.

  3. Cut the carrot, turnip, and celery into very small pieces and add them to the saucepan.

  4. Blanch the onion in boiling water, then add it along with the peppercorns to the saucepan.

  5. Allow the mixture to boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer slowly for 5 hours.

Strain and cool

  1. Strain the stock through a clean towel to remove the meat and vegetables, and let it cool for future use.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Releases gelatin and deep meaty flavor into the stock during long simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook down into the liquid.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and aromatic body to the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory background flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting, so skim as it forms during the first boil and again after adding the salt.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, celery):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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