Why it works: Beef and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,969 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓
Shin of Beef Stock for Gravies
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Break the bone of the shin in one or two places and remove the marrow.
Make the stock
In a large pot, combine the beef and cold water.
Add the salt, herbs, peppercorns, and mace.
Stew gently for 6 to 7 hours, or longer until the meat is in fragments.
Store
Store the stock in a cool place and boil for 2-3 minutes every few days.
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.
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Beef + macetop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,969 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shin of beef
- Provides the meat and bone whose collagen dissolves into the liquid, giving body to the stock.
- Cold water
- Extracts flavour and gelatine from the beef slowly as it heats, forming the stock liquid.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the stock and draws out flavour from the meat and herbs.
- Savoury herbs
- Add aromatic flavour that infuses into the stock during long, gentle stewing.
- Peppercorns
- Contribute a mild, warm spice aroma to the stock.
- Mace
- Adds a delicate, warm aroma to the stock.
The step that matters
Stew gently for 6 to 7 hours. Keeping the stock at a gentle simmer, rather than a hard boil, extracts collagen and flavour slowly while keeping the liquid clear. Boiling vigorously makes the stock cloudy and greasy.
“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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