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Bone Stock

A liquid made by simmering animal bones in water for an extended period.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Bone Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Start the stock

  1. Place the bones in a large pot and cover them with cold water.

  2. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer.

Simmer and top up

  1. Simmer the stock all day, adding more water as needed to maintain the liquid level.

  2. Add any surplus bones each day to avoid waste.

Finish and clean up

  1. Remove bones when they appear dull and have released their gelatin.

  2. Clear the stock pot of old bones at least once a week in cold weather.

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. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Mutton + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bones
Release gelatin, collagen and minerals that give the stock body and savory flavor.
Cold water
Acts as the medium that slowly draws flavor and gelatin out of the bones.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer. Vigorous boiling emulsifies fat and fine particles into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer extracts flavor and gelatin while keeping the stock clearer.

“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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