Name: Stoch for Clear Soup
Ingredients: 2 pounds knuckle or scrag of veal, cut into small pieces; 2 ounces salt butter or dripping; 2 ounces bacon, cut small; 3 teaspoons salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; ½ cup water; 3 medium onions, sliced

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stoch for Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In an iron pot or saucepan, combine veal, butter, bacon, salt, pepper, and onions.
Cook over medium heat, stirring for about 10 minutes until a thick gravy forms.

Simmer and strain

Add 5 pints of hot or cold water and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and let it simmer gently for 45 minutes.
Skim the surface, then strain through a sieve to achieve a clear broth.

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.

Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle or scrag: Releases gelatin and flavour into the broth, giving body as it simmers.
Onions: Build sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down into the gravy base.
Bacon: Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the gravy and the finished stock.
Butter or dripping: Fat that helps the veal and onions brown and form a thick gravy.

The step that matters

Cooking the veal, onions and fat until a thick gravy forms. Browning the meat and onions in fat builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Stirring keeps them from scorching on the bottom of the pot, which would make the stock taste bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits about as well
Potatofits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper. 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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Stoch for Clear Soup