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Soup Stock

A clear stock made by simmering beef, veal, and mutton, then straining and removing grease, optionally clarified with egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Beef and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Simmer the beef shank, veal shank, and mutton for several hours without boiling.

  2. Strain the stock and let it cool overnight.

  3. Remove the grease from the top the next day.

  4. Beat the egg white with cold water and add it before straining.

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. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  4. Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shank
Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Veal shank
Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, adding body and richness to the stock.
Mutton
Adds meaty, savoury flavour to the stock.
Egg white
Its proteins set and trap fine particles as they heat, helping clear the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. A gentle simmer lets collagen and flavour release slowly. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and churns particles into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy.

“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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