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Economical Brown Stock

A beef stock made by simmering shin bones with vegetables and herbs for a total of five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Economical Brown Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the bones and meat in a pan, covering them with enough water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Simmer for two hours.

Add the vegetables

  1. Slice the turnips and fry them in the dripping.

  2. Add the fried turnips, vegetables, and herbs to the stock.

  3. Simmer for three hours longer.

Strain and chill

  1. Strain the stock and let it cool.

  2. Once cold, remove the fat.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the stock as it simmers slowly.
Turnips
Fried first in dripping, they add browned sweetness and body to the stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the long-simmered stock.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam after boiling. Foam carries impurities and proteins that can cloud the stock and taint its flavour, so removing it early keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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