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A hearty broth made with beef or veal stock, onion, herbs, celery, carrot, mace, peppercorns, and optional mushrooms and bones.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the broth (or water), onion, herbs, celery, carrot, mace, and peppercorns.

  2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 4 hours.

  3. For added flavor, include mushroom buttons and bones if desired.

Strain and cool

  1. If the meat is in fragments, strain the gravy and let it cool to remove the fat.

Quicker method

  1. For a quicker method, heat the meat with ¼ to ½ cup of broth until no blood seeps out, then moisten with the remaining boiling broth.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole stock.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth as it simmers.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the liquid.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the finished broth.
Peppercorns
Release warm, aromatic spice into the liquid during simmering.
Mushroom buttons
Add earthy umami flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and fine particles into the liquid, leaving the broth cloudy and greasy. Keeping it at a gentle simmer for the full 4 hours produces a clearer, cleaner-tasting result.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, celery, carrot, mushroom. 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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