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Soup or Stock From One Pound of Beef

A simple beef stock made by simmering minced beef in water with salt, seasonings, and optional roast onions or burnt sugar for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup or Stock From One Pound of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. Mince the beef finely and combine it with the cold water in a pot.

  2. Heat the mixture slowly until it begins to boil, about 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Once boiling, let it boil briskly for 1 to 2 minutes.

Strain and season

  1. Strain the liquid through a towel.

  2. Season the liquid with salt and other seasonings, and add roast onions or burnt sugar for a darker color.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Lean beef
Supplies meat flavor and collagen that gives the finished stock body.
Cold water
Extracts flavor and gelatin from the beef as it heats gradually.
Roast onions or burnt sugar
Adds a darker color to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Heat slowly from cold. Starting the beef in cold water and heating gradually lets flavor and gelatin move into the liquid while proteins and fats coagulate into particles that can be strained out. Rushing the heat can make the stock cloudy and its taste muddy.

“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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