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Premier Bouillon

A slow‑cooked beef broth with root vegetables and aromatics, served with slices of bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Premier Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the beef in a stock pot and add cold water.

  2. Heat on a good fire, skimming off any scum that rises.

Simmer

  1. Once well skimmed, add salt, carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, parsley root, garlic, and burnt onion.

  2. Let it boil gently for six hours until the meat is fully cooked.

Serve

  1. If serving immediately, pour the broth through a sieve into a tureen with slices of bread.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh beef
Provides the meat and rich flavour that give the broth its body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Turnips
Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavour as they cook down.
Leeks
Add a gentle, mellow onion-like aroma to the broth.
Celery
Adds savory, herbal aroma that rounds out the broth.
Burnt onion
Adds deep, smoky colour and a toasted flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it before it boils back in keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, celery, parsley, clove. 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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