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To Make Strong Broth for Soup and Gravy

A hearty broth made from beef, veal, and mutton simmered with vegetables and spices for use in soups and gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

To Make Strong Broth for Soup and Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the beef, veal, and mutton in a large pot with 5 gallons of water.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim off any impurities.

  3. Add the onions, leeks, celery, carrots, turnips, sweet herbs, cloves, allspice, and salt.

  4. Skim the broth again and let it simmer gently for 6 hours.

Finish

  1. Strain the broth and set aside for later use.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + carrottop 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. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + carrottop 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 shank, veal knuckle, and mutton scrag
Release gelatin and meaty flavour into the water as they simmer, giving the broth body.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth as they cook down.
Leeks and celery
Contribute aromatic, savoury background flavour to the broth.
Carrots and turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the broth before and during simmering. Impurities that rise to the surface during heating can cloud the broth and taste bitter. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-flavoured for later use.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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