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Soup Stock, Ok Broth

A clear beef stock made by simmering beef neck, vegetables, and herbs for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soup Stock, Ok Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the cracked bone in the bottom of a soup kettle.

  2. Add the meat on top of the bone and pour in cold water.

  3. Heat gradually over the fire; skim off any blood and albumen that rises.

Simmer

  1. Add the whole carrot, turnip, onion, parsley, celery, dried herb, bay leaf, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Cook slowly for 2 hours after adding vegetables.

Strain and chill

  1. Strain through a sieve or a folded towel in a colander into an earthen vessel.

  2. When cold, remove the fat that rises.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers slowly.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth as it cooks.
Turnip
Contributes mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the blood and albumen as it heats. Blood and albumen rise to the surface as the water warms. Leaving them in clouds the broth and can give it an off flavor, so they must be skimmed off during heating.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, celery, sage):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Winter savoryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, clove, celery, sage. 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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