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Brown Stock

A beef stock made by simmering shank, vegetables, and spices in cold water for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Brown Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat and bone into small pieces and place in a large pan.

  2. Pour over the cold water and bring slowly to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface well, then add the vegetables and spices.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer gently for four hours.

  2. Strain the stock and, when cold, carefully remove all fat.

Second stock

  1. You can make a second stock from the same meat by adding fresh water.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Shank of beef
Releases gelatin and meaty flavour into the water during long simmering, giving body to the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished stock.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim the surface well. Bringing the water to a boil slowly and skimming removes coagulated proteins and impurities that would otherwise cloud the stock and make it taste muddy.

Swap the clove

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

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

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