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Soup or Stock From One Pound of Beef

A simple beef stock made by simmering one pound of minced beef in water, seasoned with salt, other seasonings, and roast onions or burnt sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Soup or Stock From One Pound of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the minced beef and cold water in a pot.

  2. Heat the mixture slowly until it begins to boil, about 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Once boiling, let it boil briskly for 1 to 2 minutes.

  4. Strain the liquid through a towel.

Season and colour

  1. Season the liquid with salt and other seasonings.

  2. Add roast onions or burnt sugar to darken the color.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Releases flavour and gelatin-rich body into the water as it slowly heats and simmers.
Roast onions or burnt sugar
Adds deeper brown colour and a toasted, slightly bittersweet aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture slowly to a boil. Starting with cold water and heating gradually lets proteins and fat release gently into the liquid. Rapid heating can cloud the stock and make it greasy, so a slow rise to the boil keeps it clearer and more even in flavour.

“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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