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Soup Stock of Beef

A clear soup stock made from beef shin bone, water, lean beef, carrots, onions, turnips, parsley, celery seed, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soup Stock of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the shin bone into three pieces and place it in a soup pot with the water and beef cut into egg-sized pieces.

  2. Add salt and boil slowly for 1 hour, skimming off the grease.

  3. Scrape the carrots, peel the onions and turnips, then quarter them.

Simmer and store

  1. Add the quartered vegetables and celery seed to the soup.

  2. Let it boil slowly for 4 hours.

  3. Strain the soup into a stone jar and keep it in a cool place.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin bone
Releases collagen and minerals into the water, giving the stock body and a rich mouthfeel.
Lean beef
Contributes meaty flavor and savory compounds as it simmers in the water.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic flavor that rounds out the stock.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as their sugars and aromatics soften during simmering.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming off the grease during the first hour. Fat and impurities rise to the surface as the stock first heats. Removing them keeps the finished stock clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy broth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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