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Premier Bouillon

A beef broth simmered with carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, parsley root, garlic, and burnt onion, served with bread slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Premier Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

Simmer

  1. Once well skimmed, add salt and the vegetables: carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, parsley root, garlic, and burnt onion.

  2. Let it boil gently for six hours, maintaining a gentle boil.

Strain and serve

  1. When done, strain the broth through a sieve into a tureen with slices of bread.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the broth its body and savory taste.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the broth as they cook slowly.
Leeks
Contribute a mild onion-like aroma and sweetness to the stock.
Burnt onion
Adds deep color and a smoky, roasted aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after the first boil. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the water heats. Removing it before the long simmer keeps the broth clear and free of off-flavors.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

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