Beef broth is one of the most often made meat extracts in French cuisine. As explained in the cooking hints section, any good broth requires bones and some meat.  Exercise patience and something beautiful will emerge. Beef broth contains bone and meat extracts, such as calcium, iron, and proteins. When removing most of the fat, you do not need to worry about the saturated fats, although some leave some fat in: it contributes to taste. 

The art of making beef broth

For broth you do not need to take the nicest parts of meat. On the contrary, I use ‘waste’ meat that has muscles and tendons and use that to simmer a tasty and concentrated broth. Observe the general principles of making broth: use many bones, and also some meat, use a long time at low heat to simmer and in the beginning remove scum frequently.  After some 4 hours or so, remove the bones and remove any meat from bones that can is suitable for consumption. Reserve this meat. Let the broth cool over-night in the refrigerator and the next day remove most of the fat. A clean, fantastic tasting broth will remain.

The best is to start with a slow, light browning of the meat and bones on medium fire. Adding some onions pieces in the process will work great.

The resulting broth with fat removed forms also an excellent base for the best beef glace.  Just continue to evaporate the broth in a wide shallow pan, with optionally some sherry vinegar added.

 

Special equipment

  • Large soup pan with lid
  • old dish towel’s cloth or cheese cloth for making a very clear broth
    beef broth ©️ Nel Brouwer-van den Bergh

    Beef broth

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    Prep Time 5 minutes
    Cook Time 5 hours
    Total Time 5 hours 5 minutes
    Course Appetizer, starter
    Cuisine French

    Ingredients
      

    Ingredients

    • 1 lb beef bones
    • 1 lb beef meat (can be offal meat, but no intestines)
    • 4 qt (3.8 L) water
    • a few bay leaves
    • 1 tbsp salt
    • 1/2 tsp pepper
    • 1/2 onion
    • 2 slices ginger
    • 1 tbsp vegetable oil or tallow

    Instructions
     

    Instructions to make the broth

    • Place the oil or fat in a large enough pan and warm up
    • Add the bones and meat and lightly brown the pieces by frying on low to medium heat and turning the pieces now and then
    • Cut the onion in large pieces and add them to the pan
    • Add all the water, the bayleaves, salt and pepper and bring close to a boil
    • When foam and scum starts to appear, remove these with a small sieve. Continue to do this, until the soup comes to a very slow simmer
    • Keep the soup at a very soft simmer for 4-5 hours
    • Taste the soup and adjust salt or pepper level . If desired, add a broth tablet or a little soy sauce
    • Thereafter, remove the bones and reserve the meat. You can use it for ragout, or add it later back to the broth
    • Let cool down and refrigerate over night
    • The next day, remove the hard surface fat layer and discard (or use for frying later)
    • A clean broth results. If you want the broth to be super clean, filter while warm over a cloth.

    Notes

    Method: simmering
    Food allergy & intolerance information: none
    Keyword beef, Broth, broth and soup, glace

Remarks

  1. For making a very clear broth, you should filter the medium warm broth through a cloth. The cold broth will be gelled and is not suitable for filtration!