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Soup

Grand Bouillon

A clear beef and bone broth seasoned with turnips, carrots, onions, and leeks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Grand Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the beef and any meat dressings with bones and feet from poultry and game.

  2. Fill the pot with water, not quite to the top, and place it over moderate heat.

  3. Skim the surface carefully, adding a little cold water each time until the stock is clear.

Simmer and finish

  1. Season the stock with salt, turnips, carrots, onions, and leeks, then let it simmer slowly.

  2. Once the meat is cooked, transfer it to a stewpan and pour some stock over it.

  3. Wet and wring a cloth, then strain the stock through it to prepare for soups and sauces.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 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

Beef
Releases flavour and gelatin into the stock as it cooks slowly, giving body and richness.
Poultry and veal bones
Provide gelatin and depth of flavour, giving the stock body.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften in the simmering stock.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and aroma to the simmering stock.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the simmering stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that would otherwise cloud the stock and make it greasy. Adding a little cold water helps those impurities rise and separate, so the stock stays clear.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, mutton, lamb, turnip, carrot, onion):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, lamb, turnip, carrot, 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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