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To Make Stock

A hearty stock made by simmering beef or veal, ham, onions, turnip, carrot, celery, and water for 10 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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To Make Stock

Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

To Make Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef and ham into pieces no larger than 2 inches square.

  2. Place the meat in a 2-gallon pot with the onions, turnip, carrot, and celery.

Simmer the stock

  1. Pour in 5 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil slowly.

  2. Once boiling, skim the surface and reduce heat to let it simmer gently for 6 hours.

  3. Strain the stock through a colander and return the meat and vegetables to the pot.

  4. Add 4 quarts of hot water and boil for an additional 4 hours.

  5. Strain both stocks through a scalded cloth.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 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. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Lean meat releases gelatin and flavor into the water during long simmering, giving the stock body.
Ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the stock as it simmers for hours.
Onions
Release sweetness and aromatic depth into the stock as they cook slowly.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the long-simmered stock.

The step that matters

Skim the surface after boiling. Bringing the water to a boil slowly and then skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that would otherwise cloud the stock and make it greasy.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, onion, turnip, carrot, 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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