Skip to main content
Main

To Make Broth and Soups

A simple broth made by simmering lean meat, water, roots, herbs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

To Make Broth and Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the meat thoroughly, removing any clotted blood and impurities.

  2. Place the meat in a pot with 1 quart of water over moderate heat.

Simmer

  1. Heat the water gently without boiling for about 30 minutes. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

  2. After 30 minutes, increase the heat to bring the pot to a boil.

  3. Add the cleaned roots and herbs along with a little coarse sea salt.

  4. Continue to skim off any scum that appears until no more rises.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef, mutton, or veal
Provides the main meat flavor and gelatin-rich body as it simmers slowly in water.
Water
Extracts flavor and collagen from the meat to form the broth liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Coagulated proteins and impurities rise to the surface as the liquid heats. Removing them keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting instead of cloudy or greasy.

“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.

More broth recipes

Beef 501Mutton 391Chicken 336Veal 133Scotch 125Clam 50 See all 17 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipes