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Soup Stock

A slow-simmered beef stock made with shank bone, water, and optional vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Crack the beef shank bone to extract marrow.

  2. Place the bone in a pot with 4 cups of cold water.

  3. Heat gradually to a slow simmer and maintain for 5 to 6 hours.

  4. Skim the surface frequently for the first hour.

  5. In the last 15 minutes, add vegetables if desired.

Adjust the seasoning

  1. If the soup is over-salted, stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of vinegar.

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shank bone
Releases marrow, collagen and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the stock body.

The step that matters

Heat gradually to a slow simmer. Bringing the water up slowly and keeping it at a gentle simmer draws out flavor and gelatin while keeping the stock clear. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and cloudies the liquid.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, pepper, horse, radish, mushroom, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, pepper, horse, radish, mushroom, 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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