Skip to main content
Main

Stock for Gravies and Soups

A clear beef stock made by simmering a leg or shin with trimmings, vegetables, and water for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Stock for Gravies and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the bone of the beef in 2 or 3 places.

  2. Place the beef and trimmings in a stew-pan and cover with cold water.

Make the stock

  1. Bring to a simmer and skim off the scum until the broth is clear.

  2. Add ½ cup of cold water to help remove remaining scum and skim again.

  3. Add the chopped carrot, turnips, celery, and onion.

  4. Stir occasionally to prevent burning or sticking.

  5. Reduce heat and let the broth boil very slowly for 4 to 5 hours.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the broth through a sieve into a stone pan or jar.

  2. Once cooled, cover and store in a cool place.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Beef shin or leg
Bone and meat release gelatin and flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma that deepen the broth's savoury flavour.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavour to the broth as it simmers.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and vegetable flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the scum at the start. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it before it breaks apart keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes