Skip to main content
Main

White Stock

A clear veal stock made with veal knuckle, onion, fowl, celery, turnip, carrot, salt, peppercorns, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the veal, onion, fowl, celery, turnip, carrot, salt, and peppercorns.

  2. Add 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for several hours until the stock is flavorful.

  4. Strain the stock through a fine sieve and discard the solids.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the liquid as it simmers, giving body to the stock.
Fowl
Adds meaty flavor and gelatin-rich body to the simmering liquid.
Celery roots or stalks
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the stock.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it cooks down in the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering gently rather than boiling. After the initial boil, a low simmer keeps the stock clear and extracts flavor and gelatin slowly. A hard boil emulsifies fats and clouds the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, turnip, carrot. 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 white stock recipes

Soup 6 See all 61 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes