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First Broth

A clear beef broth made by simmering beef parts with vegetables and salt for five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

First Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Heat and skim off the black scum.

  3. Add a little cold water to raise the white scum and remove it.

Simmer

  1. Add carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, and onions (one stuck with cloves).

  2. Add a handful of coarse sea salt and let simmer for 5 hours.

Strain and serve

  1. Skim off the fat and strain the broth through a double silk sieve.

  2. Keep the beef warm in a brazier pan with some broth until 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Part of the breast or rump of beef
Provides the meat and connective tissue that release flavour and body into the broth during long simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they soften in the liquid.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down in the broth.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like aroma and subtle sweetness to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum rises as proteins and impurities coagulate when the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and prevents bitter or muddy flavours from mixing back in during the long simmer.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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