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Bouillon— Mrs. L. A. Lancel

A beef broth made by simmering beef, vegetables, and seasonings for several hours, finished with roasted onion and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Bouillon— Mrs. L. A. Lancel

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cover the beef with cold water and add salt.

  2. Boil the mixture, skimming off any foam.

  3. Add black pepper, carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, and parsley.

  4. Boil for 4 to 5 hours, then strain and set aside.

Finish the bouillon

  1. Roast the onion in the oven, sticking whole cloves into it.

  2. Add the roasted onion to the stock and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. If desired, stir in sherry before serving.

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

Beef
Releases gelatin and savoury meaty flavour into the liquid during long simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the stock as they soften.
Leeks
Contribute a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the broth.
Onion
Roasting caramelises its sugars, adding deeper, browned flavour to the stock.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished bouillon.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam. Foam carries impurities and proteins that can turn the broth cloudy and taste bitter if left in. Skimming early, while the liquid is first brought to a boil, keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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