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Soup

Meat Stock

A clear beef stock made by simmering shin, bones, vegetables, and seasonings for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Meat Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat from the bone, chop it, and set aside the marrow and fat.

  2. Place the meat and bones in a pot with the water and salt.

Simmer

  1. Bring the water to a boil quickly, then remove the scum.

  2. Add the prepared vegetables.

  3. Skim occasionally and add a small dash of cold water to raise the scum.

  4. Let the stock simmer gently for 4½ hours.

Strain and cool

  1. Strain the stock through a sieve and set it in a cool place.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Releases gelatin and savory meat flavor into the stock as it simmers slowly.
Beef bones
Add gelatin and body, giving the finished stock a richer mouthfeel.
Water
Acts as the cooking medium that extracts flavor from the meat, bones and vegetables.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down in the stock.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and color to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim the scum after boiling. Proteins and impurities rise to the surface as the water heats. Removing them early keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting, while gentle simmering prevents cloudiness from vigorous boiling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, pepper. 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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