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A broth made with ham, beef, water, boiled meat fragments, vegetables, and served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, combine the thick slice of ham, neck of beef, and water.

  2. Simmer until the broth is transparent and flavorful.

  3. Add the fragments of boiled meat and fresh vegetables to enrich the broth.

Serve

  1. Serve with your choice of sauce made from the cooking liquid.

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. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Ham
Adds savory, smoky flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Neck of beef
Releases flavor and body into the broth during long simmering.
Water
Serves as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor from the meats.
Fresh vegetables
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Simmer until the broth is transparent and flavorful. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the broth clear, since rapid boiling emulsifies fats and clouds the liquid while extracting flavor slowly from the meat.

“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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