Skip to main content
Baking

Method of Preparing Stock

A method for making stock by simmering meat, bones, vegetables, herbs, and spices in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Meat and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,339 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Method of Preparing Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat.

  2. Chop the bones into small pieces.

  3. Place the bones in a pot.

  4. Add the meat.

  5. Cover with the appropriate amount of water.

Brown

  1. Sear the meat.

  2. Brown the onions in a hot pan.

  3. Add a cup of water.

  4. Stir occasionally until the bottom of the pot is covered with a jelly-like substance.

Simmer and skim

  1. Add the remaining cold water.

  2. Soak the meat and bones in cold water for an hour to draw out juices.

  3. Bring to a boil slowly.

  4. Skim off the scum before it boils too much.

  5. Add salt to help the scum rise.

  6. Keep the lid off until boiling.

  7. Cover the pot.

Season

  1. Add the vegetables, herbs, peppercorns, mace, and other seasonings.

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. Meat + macetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,339 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat and bones
Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin, giving the stock body and a rich mouthfeel.
Vegetables
Release aromatic flavour compounds into the liquid, adding savoury depth.
Herbs
Contribute aromatic oils that flavour the liquid gently over the long simmer.
Peppercorns
Add a pungent, sharp aroma that lifts the overall flavour.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note to the stock.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil slowly and skim the scum. Boiling hard churns fat and impurities into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy. Heating slowly and skimming the scum as it rises keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

“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.

More stock recipes

Beef 226Fish 91Soup 71White 61Brown 56Vegetable 53 See all 10 →

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes