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Brown Stock

A stock made from beef and veal shins simmered with cloves, peppercorns, salt, and water for eight hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Brown Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef, veal, cloves, peppercorns, salt, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 8 hours.

Strain and skim

  1. Strain the stock into a stone pot and let it cool.

  2. Once cooled, remove the fat from the surface.

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 + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Veal + clovetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shins
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the stock body.
Veal shin
Adds gelatin and a delicate savory depth that builds body in the stock.
Water
Acts as the extraction medium that draws flavor and gelatin out of the bones and meat.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. A hard, rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds the stock. A slow simmer keeps it clear and makes skimming easier.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal):

  1. Pepperfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal. 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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