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Restorative Broth

A beef and vegetable broth with mace, nutmeg, calves' feet, fowl, sherry, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Restorative Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Cover the minced beef with water in a saucepan and simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Add boiling water to cover the contents and simmer for another hour.

  3. Pour off the liquor without disturbing the solids.

  4. Strain the liquor through a clean cloth and remove any floating fat.

Serve

  1. Add 1 teaspoon of sherry and sugar to each cup before serving.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' feet
Their collagen turns to gelatin as they simmer, giving the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Minced beef
Releases meaty flavour and dissolved protein into the water during the long simmer.
Fowl
Adds savoury poultry flavour and some gelatin to the liquor as it simmers.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and a mild vegetable aroma to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Remove the floating fat by straining through a clean cloth. Fat that stays in the liquor makes the broth greasy and cloudy. Straining through cloth and skimming the surface before serving gives a clearer, lighter result, while pouring off the liquor first keeps the solids from mixing back in.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, nutmeg, sherry, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, nutmeg, sherry, sugar. 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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