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Soup Stock

A beef stock made by simmering shin of beef, bones, vegetables, and aromatics for 7.5 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe the beef and cut the lean meat into 1-inch cubes.

  2. Brown one-third of the meat in a hot frying pan with marrow from the marrow bone.

Make the stock

  1. In a soup kettle, combine the remaining meat with the bone and fat, and add 3 quarts of cold water.

  2. Let it stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Place the kettle on the back of the range, add the browned meat, and heat gradually to boiling point.

  4. Cover and cook slowly for 6 hours, keeping the temperature below boiling.

  5. Add the peppercorns, cloves, bay leaf, thyme, marjoram, parsley, and the diced carrot, turnip, onion, and celery.

  6. Cook for an additional 1.5 hours.

  7. Strain and cool immediately.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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

Shin of beef
Lean meat and bone release flavour and body into the long-simmered broth.
Cold water
Extracts collagen and flavour from the meat and bones as it heats slowly.
Diced onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Keep the stock below boiling during the 6-hour simmer. A hard boil makes the liquid cloudy and emulsifies fat into it, while a gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and well flavoured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, thyme, marjoram, parsley, carrot, turnip):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, thyme, marjoram, parsley, carrot, turnip. 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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