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Bouillon

A beef broth simmered with onion, parsley, and herbs, served with toasted bread squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Bouillon

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bouillon

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the beef in water for one hour.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and herbs.

  3. Add the chopped onion and parsley.

  4. Boil for an additional half hour.

  5. Strain into a soup tureen.

Serve

  1. Serve with the bread cut into squares and browned in a hot oven.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Shank beef
Simmers into the broth, releasing flavour and gelatin that give body to the liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the broth.
Bread
Browned in the oven, it becomes crisp and toasty as a garnish for the soup.

The step that matters

Boil the beef gently for the full hour. Rapid boiling makes meat proteins seize and toughen, while gentle simmering draws out flavour and gelatin slowly, giving a clearer, richer broth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, parsley, bread. 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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