Why it works: Egg and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Clarify Stock
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the stock
Let the stock cool and carefully remove all fat.
Pour the stock through a strainer to leave sediment behind.
Clarify
Finely chop the beef and add it to the stock with the whisked egg whites and crushed shells.
Whisk the stock over heat until scum rises, then simmer gently for 1 hour with the lid half off.
Strain carefully through a tammy cloth over a deep pan, lifting the cloth without squeezing.
If necessary, strain the stock a second time.
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.
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Egg + beeftop 31% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Egg whites coagulate as the stock heats, trapping suspended particles so they can be strained out clear.
- Lean raw beef
- Its proteins bind fine sediment and impurities into the egg raft, helping the stock clarify.
The step that matters
Whisk the stock over heat until scum rises, then simmer gently. The egg white raft forms as the stock heats. Boiling vigorously would break up the raft and mix impurities back into the stock, leaving it cloudy.
“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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