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Stocks and Sauces

A simple stock made by simmering meat with water, optional bay leaf, and optional caramel or browned onions for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,364 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stocks and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine 1 pound of meat with 1½ pints of water in a pot.

  2. Add a bay leaf if desired and bring to a simmer.

  3. Simmer for 4 to 6 hours, skimming off fat as it cools.

Color and finish

  1. For coloring, make caramel by melting ½ pound of sugar in a copper pot until light brown, then add ½ pint of water and reduce to syrup.

  2. Alternatively, fry onions until very brown, pound them, and stir into the stock.

  3. Season to taste before serving.

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 + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat (beef or veal)
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers, giving the stock its body and savor.
Sugar (in the method)
Caramelizes to a deep brown, adding color to the stock with a slightly bitter, toasted note.
Browned onions
Add deep brown color and a toasted, savory flavor when fried very dark and stirred in.

The step that matters

Skimming fat as the stock simmers. Fat that is left in the stock turns greasy and can cloud the liquid. Skimming as it cools lifts off the fat so the stock stays clear and clean-tasting.

“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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