Skip to main content
Main

Beef Stock

A clear stock made by simmering beef bones with vegetables and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Beef Stock

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the beef bones into pieces and wash them.

  2. Place the bones in a large pot filled halfway with cold water and halfway with hot water.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming off the scum as it forms.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer gently.

  3. Add the carrots, onions, parsley, peppercorns, salt, and garlic.

  4. Cover the pot and skim as needed.

  5. Once the meat is tender, strain the stock through a sieve.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef bones
Release gelatin and savoury flavour into the liquid during long, gentle simmering.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury aroma as they soften in the liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum rises as the liquid first heats and is made of coagulated proteins and impurities. Removing it while it forms keeps the stock clear and prevents bitter, cloudy flavours from mixing back in.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, parsley, garlic. 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.

More beef stock recipes

Brown 13Clear 8Gravy 3Soup 3Rich 3 See all 226 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes