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Mock Bouillon

A clear vegetable broth made with tomatoes, celery, carrot, onion, green pepper, cloves, mace, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Mock Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Put tomatoes in a saucepan.

  2. Add celery cut into pieces, carrot, onion, green pepper (seeds removed), cloves, and mace.

  3. Bring to a boil and let simmer for fifteen minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and add Sherry, salt, and pepper.

Serve

  1. Cool and clear before serving in bouillon cups.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the liquid base of the broth and supply its acidity and body.
Celery
Adds savory, aromatic flavor as it softens and releases its juices into the broth.
Carrot
Contributes gentle sweetness and body as it cooks down into the liquid.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a layer of wine flavor when stirred in after straining.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, clove, celery, carrot, sherry, onion, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, clove, celery, carrot, sherry, onion, pepper. 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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