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Stocks for All Kinds of Soups

A hearty stock made from beef, veal, ham, poultry trimmings, vegetables, herbs, and spices, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stocks for All Kinds of Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a clean stewpan with thin slices of ham, trimming off all excess fat.

  2. Add the beef, veal, poultry trimmings, butter, onions, carrots, turnips, celery, mushrooms, and tomato. Include the herbs, salt, sugar, peppercorns, cloves, and mace.

Make the stock

  1. Pour in the water and bring to a boil.

  2. Simmer for several hours, skimming off any impurities that rise to the surface.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Provides gelatin and meaty flavour as it slowly breaks down during simmering.
Knuckle of veal
Adds collagen that gives the stock body and a rich, silky mouthfeel.
Lean ham
Contributes savoury, salty depth to the stock's overall flavour.
Onions
Build sweet, savoury aromatic depth as they cook into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming during the simmer. Impurities and fat that rise to the surface can cloud the stock and make it taste greasy or bitter. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, so it should be done regularly throughout the long simmer.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Turnipthe original
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, butter, onion, 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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