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To Clarify Soup Stock

A clarified soup stock made by simmering beef, veal, vegetables, and water, then straining and skimming.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

To Clarify Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine beef, veal, turnips, carrots, soup greens, red pepper, onions, salt, and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 6 hours.

  3. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Let the stock stand overnight to congeal.

  5. Skim off the grease and reheat before serving.

Clarify the stock

  1. Heat the stock to boiling point.

  2. Add the beaten egg white and boil for 2 minutes.

  3. Reduce heat and cook gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Remove any scum that forms on the surface.

  5. Strain the stock through cheesecloth.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Its proteins coagulate as they heat, trapping cloudy particles so they can be removed for a clear stock.
Beef
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the water during long simmering, giving body to the stock.
Veal knuckle
Adds collagen-rich gelatin that gives the finished stock a fuller body and a silky mouthfeel.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock during simmering.

The step that matters

Add the egg white and keep the stock gently simmering. Egg white proteins must be stirred in and then left to set undisturbed as the stock heats, forming a raft that traps cloudy particles. Boiling hard breaks up the raft and leaves the stock cloudy.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Parsnipfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, beef, veal, carrot, celery, parsley, 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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