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How to Prepare Stock

A beef stock made by simmering shin, bones, vegetables, and seasonings 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 ↓

How to Prepare Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan or stock pot, combine the beef, bones, and water.

  2. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil.

  3. Skim off the scum frequently; add a little cold water if needed to help.

  4. Once well skimmed, add the salt, onion, leeks, celery, turnip, carrot, parsnip, and pepper.

  5. Simmer the stock at 180°F to 200°F (82°C to 93°C) for four to five hours.

Strain and store

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

  2. Remove the meat, vegetables, and bones, then strain the stock into an earthenware vessel.

  3. Store the stock in a cool place, covered with muslin gauze to keep dust out.

  4. Remove any remaining fat when the stock is cold.

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 flavour and gelatin into the water as it simmers slowly.
Bones
Add body and gelatin, giving the finished stock a richer mouthfeel.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury aroma as it cooks down into the stock.
Carrot
Contributes sweetness and aroma to the background flavour of the stock.
Leeks
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Skim the scum as it rises. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that cloud the stock and can taint its flavour. Removing it early, while the liquid heats slowly, keeps the stock 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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