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Stock for Clear Soup

A clear beef stock made by simmering beef, bones, vegetables, and herbs for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stock for Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Crack the bones and extract the marrow, adding it to the soup.

  2. Place 5 pounds of beef in 5 quarts of cold water in a large pot.

  3. Heat gradually and let it boil very slowly for 6-7 hours.

  4. Check occasionally and replenish with boiling water if needed.

Strain and clarify

  1. After 7 hours, remove the meat for another use and strain the stock.

  2. Let the stock cool and skim off the fat in the morning.

  3. Return the stock to the pot, avoiding sediment.

Flavour and serve

  1. Add onion, celery, sage, parsley, thyme, summer savory, bay leaves, peppercorns, and cloves.

  2. Boil gently for 10-20 minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Strain through a fine sieve and serve as clear soup or use as a base for other soups.

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. Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Releases gelatin and flavour into the water during long, slow simmering, forming the body of the stock.
Beef bones
Add marrow and collagen that enrich the stock's body and richness as they simmer.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the finished stock.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, vegetal aroma that rounds out the stock's flavour.

The step that matters

Very slow simmering. Boiling the stock vigorously makes it cloudy, because agitation emulsifies fat and breaks up protein particles. Keeping it at a gentle simmer and skimming off the fat keeps the liquid clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, celery, sage, parsley, thyme, summer savory, clove):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, sage, parsley, thyme, summer savory, 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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