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To Make Three Quarts of Good Beef Stock

A rich beef stock made by simmering shin, bones, and vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

To Make Three Quarts of Good Beef Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put beef, bones, and water into a stock pot.

  2. Bring to a slow boil, skimming off the scum frequently.

  3. Add salt, onion, leeks, celery, turnip, carrot, parsnip, and pepper.

  4. Simmer for 4 to 5 hours at 180°F to 200°F (82°C to 93°C).

Finish and strain

  1. Skim off the fat, which can be saved for frying.

  2. Remove meat, vegetables, and bones, then strain the stock into a container.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

Fresh shin of beef
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the stock as it simmers slowly.
Bones
Add gelatin and body, giving the finished stock a richer mouthfeel.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks down.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and color to the broth.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer slow and skim the scum. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and impurities into the liquid, making the stock cloudy and greasy. Gentle heat and regular skimming keep it clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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