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Common Broth, or Stock

A hearty beef broth made by simmering beef, shin, and optional vegetables for eight hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Common Broth, or Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef and shin into pieces.

  2. Combine with water in a large pot.

Cook

  1. Bring to a boil and skim off the fat.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 8 hours.

  3. Strain through a sieve and let cool in flat dishes.

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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsnip + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Gravy beef
Provides the main flavour and gelatin-rich collagen that gives the broth body.
Shin or leg of beef
Adds bone-rich collagen and depth of flavour during the long simmer.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that slowly extracts flavour and collagen from the meat.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after the boil. Fat and foam that rise early can make the broth greasy and cloudy. Skimming them before the long simmer keeps the broth clearer and cleaner tasting.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsnip, celery, carrot):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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