Why it works: Beef and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Beef Soup Stock
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the beef into fine pieces and remove the marrow.
In a kettle, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the beef and cook until browned.
Make the stock
Add the bones and enough hot water to cover the meat.
Boil for four hours.
Strain the stock and let it cool.
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.
-
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef shank
- Provides the meat and connective tissue that flavour and body the stock.
- Butter
- Fat that carries flavour and helps the beef brown in the kettle.
The step that matters
Browning the beef. Browning creates deeper, roasted flavours through the Maillard reaction. Cooking the beef until browned, rather than just greyed, gives the stock more richness.
“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.
More beef stock recipes
You might also like
Roast Beef211 recipes
Beef Loaf175 recipes
Corned Beef87 recipes
Beef Broth67 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.