Skip to main content
Main

Beef Bouillon

A clear beef broth made by simmering beef, celery, carrots, bay leaves, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

Beef Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Place the beef in a kettle and cover it with cold water.

  2. Let it sit for a while, then simmer slowly to draw out the juices.

Add the vegetables

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and add the chopped celery and sliced carrots.

  2. Stir and fry until browned.

  3. After 2 hours of simmering the beef, add the sautéed vegetables, bay leaves, and cloves to the kettle.

  4. Cook for another hour, then strain through a wire sieve or cheesecloth wrung out in hot water.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve hot with crisp wafers.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavor and the juices drawn out into the broth during slow simmering.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the broth once sautéed and simmered.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and savory depth to the broth after browning.
Butter
Carries the vegetables' flavor and helps them brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly rather than boiling. A gentle simmer draws juices out of the beef gradually. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the meat, so the broth stays clear and flavorful.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, celery, carrot, pepper. 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.

You might also like

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