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Premier Bouillon

A simple beef broth made by simmering beef, water, and vegetables for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Premier Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the beef in a stock pot and add cold water.

  2. Heat on a good fire, skimming off any scum that rises.

  3. Once well skimmed, add salt and the vegetables and garlic.

Simmer and serve

  1. Let it boil gently for about 6 hours, maintaining a gentle boil.

  2. When done, pour the broth through a sieve into a tureen with slices of bread.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water during the long simmer, giving the broth body.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they cook slowly.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma that rounds out the broth.
Burnt onion
Gives the broth a deeper color and smoky, caramelized flavor.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the water heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and prevents off-flavors from dispersing into the liquid during the long simmer.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, clove. 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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