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Bone Stock for Soup

A clear liquid made by simmering bones, carrots, celery, and salt in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Bone Stock for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the bones into very small pieces.

  2. Place the bones in a stewpan with the carrots and celery.

  3. Cover with cold water or leftover braising liquid.

Make the stock

  1. Bring to a boil quickly, skimming off the scum that rises.

  2. Add cold water to help remove the scum, repeating this process 2-3 times until the stock is clear.

  3. Remove from heat and let it stew for 2 hours to extract the goodness from the bones.

  4. Strain the stock and let it sit overnight.

Finish

  1. The next day, carefully remove the grease without leaving any residue.

  2. Lift the stock from the sediment at the bottom of the pan.

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. Meat + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + carrottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,905 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

Bones
Release gelatin, collagen and flavour into the water during long, gentle simmering.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Celery
Adds savoury, aromatic background flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum as it rises. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities. Skimming while the liquid first comes to a boil keeps the stock clear and free of off flavours, and adding cold water helps lift the foam to the surface.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, mutton, carrot):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, mutton, carrot. 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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