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Stock for Soup

A clear beef or veal broth made by simmering meat, bone, and aromatics in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Stock for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the beef or veal and bone in a large pot with cold water.

  2. Simmer for 5 hours, then strain through a sieve.

  3. Add fried onion, carrot slices, parsley, celery, and cloves one hour before finishing for better flavor.

Season and chill

  1. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Cool the stock overnight to remove fat easily.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal with bone
Provides meaty flavor and gelatin from the bone that gives the stock body.
Cold water
Serves as the cooking liquid that slowly extracts flavor from the meat and bones.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth to the stock's aroma.
Carrot
Contributes mild sweetness and body to the stock.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic background note to the stock.

The step that matters

Cool the stock overnight. Fat solidifies on top as the stock cools, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skimming while warm leaves more fat dispersed in the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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