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Stock for Brown Sauce

A rich beef and veal stock with ham, chicken, vegetables, and tomato, thickened with flour or arrowroot and colored for brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stock for Brown Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. In a stock pot, place the shredded onions, sliced carrot, and tomatoes.

  2. Add the ham fat and a little dripping.

  3. Simmer for 15 minutes without coloring.

  4. Add the beef and veal.

  5. Fill with 2 gallons of water.

  6. Add the bouquet garni, celery, and peppercorns.

  7. Boil for 5 hours, skimming off fat and replenishing with boiling water as needed.

  8. Strain through a coarse strainer.

  9. Let the liquid sit overnight to allow fat to rise, then remove the fat.

Thicken and colour

  1. Bring the liquid to a boil in a clean stock pot.

  2. In a basin, dissolve the fecule flour in the Sherry or Madeira.

  3. Slowly add the mixture to the boiling stock while stirring until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and let it boil quietly for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Add coloring until light brown.

  6. Strain through fine muslin.

Keep

  1. Let cool in a large basin, stirring occasionally to prevent fermentation.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Transfer to a clean basin every second day to preserve.

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 + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Knuckle of beef
Releases gelatin and savoury flavour into the stock during long simmering.
Knuckle of veal
Adds body and gelatin, giving the stock a fuller texture.
Fecule flour or arrowroot
Thickens the stock into a smooth, glossy sauce when heated.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they cook into the stock.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and depth of flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Slowly add the thickener to the boiling stock while stirring. Starch clumps if dropped in at once. Adding it slowly while stirring lets each part disperse and swell evenly, giving a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, chicken, onion, carrot, tomato):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, chicken, onion, carrot, tomato. 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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