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A Clear Broth to Keep

A clear broth made from mutton, beef, calf's feet, and eel, simmered until tender and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Clear Broth to Keep

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine 1 lb of mutton, 1 lb of beef, 1 lb of calf's feet, and 1 lb of eel in a large pot.

  2. Cover with water and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for several hours until the meat is tender.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the broth through a fine sieve and discard the solids.

  2. Season to taste and serve warm.

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. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Contributes meaty flavor and gelatin-rich body to the broth as it simmers.
Beef
Adds deep savory flavor and body to the broth during long simmering.
Calf's feet
Releases collagen that turns into gelatin, giving the broth a silky, rich body.
Eel
Adds richness and savory depth to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmering gently. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, because a rolling boil emulsifies fat and cloudy particles into the liquid. Long, slow heating also gives collagen time to break down into gelatin.

“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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