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White Stock Soup

A clear veal stock soup made with veal knuckle, bacon, vegetables, herbs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Stock Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat and crack the bones.

  2. Slice the carrots, turnips, and one onion, leaving the onion with cloves whole.

Make the stock

  1. Combine the meat, bones, sliced vegetables, mace, and all herbs except parsley in 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a slow boil.

  3. Skim off the scum as it rises.

  4. After 1 hour, add 1 gallon of cold water.

  5. Cover the pot.

  6. Cook gently for 4 hours.

Strain and season

  1. Strain the liquid, which should yield about 5 quarts.

  2. Rub the vegetables through a colander.

  3. Remove bones and meat.

  4. Season the mixture.

  5. Place it in a wide-mouth jar or large bowl.

  6. Add 3 quarts of well-salted stock.

  7. Refrigerate when cold.

  8. Remove the fat from the cooled stock.

  9. Season the stock.

Finish the soup

  1. Add chopped parsley.

  2. Heat 1 cup of milk in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the floured butter and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. After the soup has simmered for 10 minutes and been skimmed, pour it into a tureen.

  5. Stir in the hot, thickened milk.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 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

Veal knuckle
Its bones and connective tissue release gelatin, giving the stock body.
Lean bacon
Adds savory, salty fat that flavors the stock.
Flour
Thickens the milk with butter so the soup turns creamy.
Milk
Adds richness and softness to the finished soup.
Onions
Build savory sweetness as they cook slowly in the stock.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color to the stock.

The step that matters

Cook gently and skim the stock. Bringing the stock to a slow boil and skimming the scum as it rises keeps it clear. Boiling hard breaks up fat and proteins, which emulsify into cloudy liquid and can taste greasy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, clove):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, clove. 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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