Why it works: Beef and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓
Stock or Consomme
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Break the bones and cut the meat into pieces to extract more juices.
Simmer
Start with a small amount of water and add more as it evaporates.
Boil for about 5 hours for 6 pounds of meat; if using bones, boil for about 10 hours.
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.
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Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef shin or ox-cheek
- Provides the main flavour and gelatin-rich connective tissue that gives the stock body.
- Veal knuckle
- Adds gelatin from bone and collagen, giving the stock a fuller, silkier body.
The step that matters
Adding water gradually. Starting with a small amount of water and topping up as it evaporates keeps the stock concentrated and prevents the meat and bones from being exposed and drying out, which would dull the flavour.
“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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