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Stock Fob Brown Sauce

A thickened brown sauce made from beef, veal, ham, chicken stock, tomatoes, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Stock Fob Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Combine shredded onions, sliced carrot, and tomatoes (or tomato puree with sugar) in a stock pot.

  2. Add ham fat and a little dripping, then simmer for 15 minutes without coloring.

  3. Add beef, veal, and fill the pot with 2 gallons of water.

  4. Add bouquet garni, celery, and peppercorns.

  5. Boil for 5 hours, skimming off fat and replenishing with boiling water as needed.

  6. Strain the stock through a coarse strainer and let it sit overnight to allow the fat to rise.

  7. Remove the fat and bring the stock to a boil in a clean pot.

Thicken and colour

  1. In a bowl, dissolve fecule flour in Sherry (or other liquid).

  2. Stir the boiling stock continuously while slowly adding the dissolved mixture until it thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and let it boil quietly for 2–3 minutes.

  4. Add coloring until a light brown is achieved, then strain through fine muslin.

Cool and keep

  1. Transfer the sauce to a large basin and stir occasionally until cool to prevent fermentation.

  2. Boil the mixture and transfer to a clean basin every second day to keep it fresh.

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 + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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

Knuckle of beef
Releases gelatin and flavor into the stock during the long simmer, giving body.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin from its bones and connective tissue, giving the stock a fuller body.
Fecule flour or arrowroot
Starch that thickens the boiling stock into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a reddish note that balances the rich meat flavor.
Onions
Build savory aromatic flavor as they cook slowly into the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring while adding the starch mixture. Starch added to boiling liquid without constant stirring can clump and thicken unevenly. Adding it slowly while stirring disperses the granules so the sauce becomes smooth.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, chicken, onion, tomato, sugar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Okrafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, chicken, onion, tomato, sugar. 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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