Skip to main content
Main

How to Make Stock

A rich stock made from beef shin, veal knuckles, vegetables, spices, and butter, simmered for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
How to Make 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 ↓

How to Make Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the meat and bones in cold water.

  2. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat.

Make the stock

  1. Add the meat, bones, vegetables, spices, and a pint of water to the pot.

  2. Cover tightly and place on a brisk fire, stirring frequently.

  3. Simmer for 6 hours, skimming off any foam that forms.

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. Celery + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  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

Beef shin or neck piece
Collagen from the connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the stock body.
Veal knuckles
Bones release gelatin and minerals, adding body and a rich mouthfeel to the stock.
Onion
Its sugars and aromatic compounds deepen the flavour of the stock as it cooks.

The step that matters

Skimming off the foam. Foam is coagulated proteins and impurities that can cloud the stock and taste bitter if left to mix back in. Skim it as it rises during the long simmer.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, sage. 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.

More beef stock recipes

Brown 13Clear 8Gravy 3Soup 3Rich 3 See all 226 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes