Skip to main content
Main

Brown Stock

A beef stock made by browning meat, simmering bones, and cooking with vegetables and seasonings for a total of seven hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Brown Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown the meat

  1. Cut the lean meat into small pieces.

  2. Brown the meat in a hot frying pan using the marrow from the bone.

Make the stock

  1. Put the bone and fat in a large kettle.

  2. Add the cold water to the kettle.

  3. Let the water stand for 20 minutes.

  4. Place the kettle over the fire and bring to a boil.

  5. Remove the scum as it rises.

  6. Add the browned meat to the kettle.

  7. Cover the kettle.

  8. Reduce the heat to maintain a boil for 5 hours.

Finish and strain

  1. Add the prepared vegetables and seasoning.

  2. Cook for an additional 2 hours.

  3. Strain the stock immediately.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 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 beef
Releases collagen and flavor during long simmering, giving the stock body and a meaty taste.
Bones (in the method)
Release gelatin and minerals into the water, adding richness and body to the stock.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks slowly in the liquid.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and rounds out the stock's flavor.
Potato
Its starch lightly thickens the stock and softens the overall texture.

The step that matters

Brown the meat well before simmering. Browning triggers Maillard reactions that create deep, roasted flavors. Pale, under-browned meat gives a flat, grayish-tasting stock that no later seasoning can fully fix.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, turnip, onion, carrot, 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.

More brown stock recipes

Clear 6 See all 56 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes