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Plain Stock-broth

A clear beef stock made with bones, meat, vegetables, herbs, and spices, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Plain Stock-broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the stock broth the day before serving.

  2. In a large pot, combine the beef and water.

  3. Add any fresh trimmings of meat and optional ingredients.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Skim off any impurities until the broth is clear.

Simmer

  1. Add salt, peppercorns, pimento, carrots, turnips, onions, cloves, leeks, herbs, and celery.

  2. Simmer for 4 to 6 hours, adjusting time based on quantity.

  3. Avoid overcooking to prevent deterioration of flavor and color.

Finish

  1. Let it settle.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Corn + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meaty flavor and body for the broth.
Water
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor and gelatin from the meat and bones.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and color to the broth.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Avoid overcooking. Long, hard boiling breaks down flavor and clouds color, so the broth should be kept at a gentle simmer and skimmed while it cooks.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mutton, rabbit, corn, carrot, turnip, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mutton, rabbit, corn, carrot, turnip, onion. 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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