Skip to main content
Main

White Stock

A clear stock made from fowl, veal, water, and vegetables, simmered for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Leek and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,093 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the fowl and veal in a large saucepan and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil quickly to allow the scum to rise, then remove the scum.

  3. Add the salt, skim again, then add the vegetables, cloves, and pepper.

  4. Reduce heat and let simmer slowly for 3 hours.

  5. Strain through a clean towel and allow to cool.

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. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the stock body and savoury depth.
Veal
Adds gelatin and rich meaty flavour, giving the stock more body as it simmers.
Leeks
Contribute mild, sweet aromatic flavour to the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil quickly, then remove the scum. Rapid heating lifts coagulating proteins and impurities to the surface, where they can be skimmed off. Removing them keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, leek, 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.

More white stock recipes

Soup 6 See all 61 →

You might also like

Cream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesLeek SoupLeek Soup31 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes