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Beef Stock

A clear broth made by simmering beef and bones with vegetables and herbs for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Beef Stock

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the soup meat and broken bones in a stock pot.

  2. Add the cold water and coarse sea salt.

Simmer

  1. Boil slowly for 5 hours, removing the scum as it rises.

  2. Add the chopped turnips, carrots, celery, onion, cloves, peppercorns, and herbs.

  3. When the vegetables are cooked, strain the soup into a large saucepan.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Soup meat
Releases gelatin and savory flavour into the water as it simmers slowly.
Turnips
Add sweetness and earthy flavour to the stock as they soften.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stock as they cook.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavour to the stock.
Onion
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 5 hours, removing the scum as it rises. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, while a hard boil emulsifies fat and impurities into it, making the stock cloudy and greasy. Skimming removes the coagulated proteins that rise to the surface.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, turnip, carrot, celery, onion):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, turnip, carrot, celery, onion. 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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