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Drink

White Stock

A clear chicken stock made by simmering chicken, water, salt, celery, and onion for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces.

  2. Place the chicken in 2 quarts of water and add salt.

  3. Simmer for several hours until the chicken is fully cooked.

  4. Add the chopped celery and onion, then simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

Strain

  1. Strain the stock and it is ready for use.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Gives the stock its main meaty flavor and, as it cooks, body from dissolved collagen.
Celery
Adds a fresh, savory aroma that builds the stock's flavor during simmering.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and releases its flavor into the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. A gentle simmer keeps the stock clear and lets flavor and collagen release slowly. A hard boil breaks up fats and proteins, making the stock cloudy and greasy.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion. 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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