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Sark Stock

A rich beef stock made with shin, bones, vegetables, herbs, spices, and burnt sugar coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Sark Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place bones in a stockpot.

  2. Wipe the meat with a cloth dipped in cold water and cut into pieces.

  3. Peel and fry onions in butter until darkly browned.

  4. Add meat to the pot and brown it.

Make the stock

  1. Fill the pot with cold water and place over heat.

  2. Once boiling, remove from heat and skim off the scum.

  3. Add browned onions, carrots, turnips, celery, herbs, spices, and burnt sugar.

  4. Simmer slowly until the meat is tender.

Strain and store

  1. Strain through a fine sieve into a basin.

  2. Cool and remove fat from the top before storing.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin or lower round of beef
Provides meat flavour and gelatine-rich body as it simmers slowly to tenderness.
Bones
Release collagen and minerals during long simmering, giving the stock body and depth.
Onions
Browning in butter adds deep colour and savoury, caramelised aroma to the stock.
Burnt sugar coloring or caramel
Adds a rich brown colour to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Skimming after the water boils. Scum rising from the meat and bones is coagulated protein and impurities. Removing it while the pot is off the heat keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, butter, carrot, turnip, celery, 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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