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To Make Three Quarts of Good Beef Stock

A stock made by simmering beef shin, bones, and vegetables in water for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Three Quarts of Good Beef Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the beef, bones, and clean rainwater in a saucepan or stock pot.

  2. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Add the salt, onion, leeks, celery, turnip, carrot, parsnip, and pepper.

  4. Simmer the stock at 180°F to 200°F (82°C to 93°C) for four to five hours.

Strain and store

  1. Skim off the fat, which can be saved for frying or other uses.

  2. Remove the meat, vegetables, and bones, then strain the stock into a large bowl or earthenware vessel.

  3. Store the stock in a cool place, covered with muslin gauze to keep dust out.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and body as it cooks slowly.
Bones
Release gelatin and collagen during long simmering, giving the stock body and richness.
Leeks
Add mild, sweet aromatic flavour to the broth.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aroma as it cooks down into the liquid.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and rounds out the stock's flavour.
Celery
Adds aromatic, herbal depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum as the stock comes to a boil. Scum is coagulated proteins and impurities that rise early. Removing them keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or bitter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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