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Brown Soup Stock

A hearty beef and veal stock simmered with vegetables and herbs, finished with butter‑cooked vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Brown Soup Stock

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Brown Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Combine beef, veal, and cold water in a kettle and let stand for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat slowly to boiling.

  3. Simmer for 3 hours, skimming off scum.

  4. Add a quart of liquid from cooked fowl.

  5. Simmer for 2 more hours.

Add vegetables and finish

  1. Cook carrot, turnip, onion, and celery in butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the cooked vegetables to the soup with remaining seasonings and cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the soup.

  4. Cool quickly.

  5. Remove fat.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides meaty flavour and body as its proteins and connective tissue break down during long simmering.
Veal
Adds gelatin and a delicate savoury flavour, giving the stock a fuller body.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aroma when cooked in butter first.
Celery
Adds aromatic, herbal background flavour to the stock.
Butter
Carries the vegetables' flavours and helps them brown lightly before they go into the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming off scum during the 3-hour simmer. Scum contains coagulated proteins and impurities that cloud the stock and can taste bitter if left to mix back in. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a rolling boil also keeps the broth clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, thyme, marjoram, parsley, carrot, turnip):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, thyme, marjoram, parsley, carrot, turnip. 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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