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How to Make Broth for Soups

A beef broth made by simmering beef with water, salt, celery, leeks, carrot, and parsnip.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

How to Make Broth for Soups

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef and cold water in a stew pot.

  2. Heat over low heat until it simmers gradually.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  4. Once skimmed, add the salt and prepared vegetables.

  5. Tie the vegetables together and drop them into the pot.

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. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsniptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main flavor and gelatin-rich body as it slowly simmers in the water.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and color to the broth.
Parsnip
Adds earthy sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Heat gently and skim the scum. Heating slowly lets the water warm gradually so impurities and proteins rise as scum, which can be skimmed off for a clearer broth. Boiling too hard would emulsify fats and cloud the liquid.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, leek, carrot, parsnip):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, leek, carrot, parsnip. 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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