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Le Grand Bouillon

A clear beef broth made with beef, water, carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, onions, cloves, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Le Grand Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the beef and parts in a large pot with cold water.

  2. Heat on the stove and skim off the scum as it forms.

Simmer

  1. Add the carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, and onions (one onion studded with cloves).

  2. Stir in the coarse sea salt and let simmer for 5 hours.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the broth through a cloth or fine sieve.

  2. If available, place the beef in some braising liquid to enhance its flavor.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook down.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and savory depth to the simmering liquid.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savory flavor to the broth during long simmering.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum as it forms. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and prevents off-flavors from mixing back in during the long simmer.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, onion):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, leek, 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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