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White Soup Stock III

A clear beef stock made by simmering beef cubes, water, onion, carrot, celery, parsley, peppercorns, bay leaf, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

White Soup Stock III

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe the meat with a wet cloth and cut it into 1-inch cubes.

  2. Soak the meat in cold water for 1 hour.

Simmer the stock

  1. Cover and bring to a boil slowly, skimming off any scum that rises.

  2. Simmer for 4 hours.

  3. Add the diced vegetables and spices, then simmer for 1 hour longer.

  4. Strain the stock into an earthen bowl.

  5. Leave uncovered to cool rapidly, then remove the fat and clarify.

Serve

  1. Serve in bouillon cups.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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

Beef
Collagen from the round breaks down during long simmering, giving the stock body and savoury depth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the simmering liquid.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavour that rounds out the stock's savoury base.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and aroma to the simmering stock.

The step that matters

Skimming while bringing to a boil. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Skimming them early keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting instead of cloudy and muddy.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, carrot, parsley, celery. 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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