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A Very Nourishing Veal Broth

A nourishing broth made from veal knuckle, old fowl, mutton shank-bones, mace, peppercorns, onion, bread, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,488 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Very Nourishing Veal Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak and bruise the shank-bones of mutton.

  2. Combine the veal knuckle, old fowl, shank-bones, mace, peppercorns, onion, bread, and water in a stew pot.

Cook the broth

  1. Bring to a boil, then skim the surface.

  2. Simmer on low heat for four hours, or bake it.

Finish

  1. Strain the broth and remove the fat.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt as desired.

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. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mace + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long, gentle cooking.
Old fowl
Adds deep poultry flavor and body to the broth as it simmers.
Shank-bones of mutton
Contribute marrow, collagen and rich meaty flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer on low heat. A gentle simmer extracts gelatin and flavor slowly while keeping the broth clear. A hard boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and clouds it, so keep the surface barely moving.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mutton, onion, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Pepperfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, onion, bread. 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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