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Modern Cookery

A savory broth made from beef or veal stock, onions, herbs, celery, carrot, mace, peppercorns, and optional mushrooms and bones.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the broth and bring to a boil.

  2. Add salt, onion, herbs, celery, carrot, mace, and peppercorns.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 4 hours.

  4. Once the meat is tender, strain the broth and let it cool to remove fat.

  5. For added flavor, include mushroom buttons and bones if desired.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal broth
Forms the base liquid and supplies the main meaty flavor of the finished broth.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it simmers into the liquid.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor that builds the background of the broth.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear, because vigorous boiling emulsifies fat and cloudies the liquid. Skimming and cooling later removes the fat that does rise.

Swap the mace

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

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

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