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Good Stock for Clear Soups.

A clear stock made from beef shin, vegetables, herbs, and bones, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Good Stock for Clear Soups.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the vegetables well.

  2. Peel the onions, carrots, and turnip.

  3. Cut all vegetables into pieces about 1.5 inches square.

  4. Tie the herbs and spices in a piece of muslin.

Simmer and strain

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef, vegetables, water, herbs, spices, and bones.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours.

  3. Strain the stock through a fine sieve or cloth before using.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Provides rich meat flavour and gelatin that gives the stock body.
Bones
Release collagen and gelatin during long simmering, adding body and depth to the stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down into the stock.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Keep the stock at a gentle simmer. Boiling vigorously makes the liquid cloudy, because agitation breaks up fat and proteins into fine particles. A slow simmer keeps the stock clear and lets collagen dissolve gradually.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, onion, tomato, thyme. 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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