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Good Stock for Ordinary Purposes

A beef stock made by simmering shin‑bone, lean neck, vegetables, and herbs for about eight hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Good Stock for Ordinary Purposes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into slices and crack the bone.

  2. Place the meat and bone in a large pot suitable for cooking over fire.

Simmer

  1. Add the water and let it simmer slowly.

  2. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Stick the cloves into the onion and add it along with the vegetables.

  4. Continue to simmer until the meat is tender and falling apart, about eight hours.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the stock through a colander and store in a covered container.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin-bone
Releases collagen and gelatin into the water, giving the stock body and a rich mouthfeel.
Lean neck of beef
Contributes beefy flavour and meat that softens into the stock during long simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks down into the liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming off the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the stock heats. Removing it keeps the stock clear and free of off-flavours that would otherwise cloud and dull the finished broth.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, parsnip, leek, 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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