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White Soup Stock

A clear soup stock made by simmering veal, water, salt, pepper, herbs, and vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the veal into several pieces and place in a soup kettle.

  2. Add the cold water and heat gradually to boiling.

  3. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Add salt, peppercorns, sweet red pepper pod, parsley, cloves, bay leaf, sweet herbs, celery, and onion.

  5. Continue cooking until the meat is tender.

Strain and reduce

  1. Remove the meat for use in other dishes and strain the broth.

  2. If the broth exceeds 3 pints, simmer until reduced to that quantity.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat and bone that release gelatin and savory flavour into the broth.
Cold water
Serves as the cooking liquid that extracts flavour and gelatin from the veal.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the broth.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Heat the water gradually to boiling. Starting with cold water and heating slowly lets proteins and impurities coagulate and rise gradually, so the stock stays clearer and less cloudy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, parsley, clove, 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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