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Nutritious Beef Broth

A simple beef broth made with cubes of lean beef, milk, celery, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Nutritious Beef Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into small cubes and sprinkle lightly with salt.

  2. Cover the beef with cold water.

  3. Let it stand for 2 minutes, then drain.

Cook gently

  1. Place the beef, milk, and celery into a jar.

  2. Put the jar in lukewarm water and heat to 155°F (68°C).

  3. Maintain this temperature for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the broth 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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + celerytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavor and protein that give the broth its savory body.
Milk
Adds richness and a mild sweetness that rounds out the broth.

The step that matters

Maintain the temperature at 155°F (68°C). Holding the jar at a steady low temperature for the full two hours lets the meat release its flavor and juices gently. Heating too hot can toughen the meat and make the broth cloudy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Pepperfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, milk. 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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