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Soup

Second Stock

A clarified second stock made by simmering meat and bones, then clarifying with minced beef and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and beef 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 ↓

Second Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Return the meat and bones from the first stock to a stock pot.

  2. Cover the meat with hot water and add a little salt.

  3. Boil the stock for six hours.

  4. Strain the stock through a fine sieve and keep it in a cool place.

Clarify the stock

  1. When needed, skim off all the fat.

  2. Mince raw lean beef.

  3. Beat the egg whites with the shells.

  4. Mix the minced beef with cold stock.

  5. Pour the mixture into a pan on the hot-plate.

  6. Stir the mixture occasionally until it boils.

  7. Remove scum as it rises.

  8. Strain the stock through a fine sieve.

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. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

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

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

  3. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw lean beef
Minced beef traps fine particles as it heats, helping clarify the stock.
Egg whites
Egg whites coagulate as they heat, gathering impurities into a raft that clears the stock.
Meat and bones from first stock
Remaining meat and bones still release flavour and body into the second stock.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture until it boils. Stirring occasionally while heating keeps the egg white and beef from settling and scorching on the base of the pan before the raft forms. Once it boils, the raft should be left undisturbed so it can trap impurities, and scum must be removed as it rises.

“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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