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Beef Bouillon

A clear beef broth made by simmering beef, vegetables, and herbs for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 286 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef in a large pot with the water and heat slowly to a boil, then skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  2. Remove 1 pint of the broth and set aside for cooking the vegetables.

  3. Add 1 sliced carrot, 1 sliced turnip, the large onion, and the herbs to the remaining broth.

  4. Simmer slowly for 4 hours.

  5. Remove the beef and keep it warm over boiling water.

  6. Strain the soup, pressing the vegetables to extract flavor.

  7. Cool the broth, skim off the fat, and return it to the heat.

Finish and serve

  1. When hot, add noodles, boiled rice, or soaked German sago.

  2. Simmer for 5 minutes and serve in a tureen.

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. Turnip + cauliflowertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Turnip + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.
Turnips
Add mild, slightly sweet flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum at the start. Scum that rises as the beef heats contains coagulated proteins and impurities. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and free of off flavors.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, beans, peas, cauliflower):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, beans, peas, cauliflower. 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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