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Soup

Stock, Quickly Made

A clear soup stock made quickly with onion, water, parsley, gelatine, and Bovril.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stock, Quickly Made

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and halve the onion, then stick the cloves into it.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the onion, water, parsley, gelatine, salt, and cayenne.

  3. Add celery or tarragon if available for extra flavor.

Make the stock

  1. Boil until the gelatine dissolves, then strain into a bowl.

  2. Press the onion and parsley to extract maximum flavor.

  3. Stir in the Bovril until dissolved.

Serve

  1. Serve as clear soup or add cooked macaroni, vermicelli, or julienne vegetables.

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. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Dissolves into the liquid to give the stock body and a slightly wobbly, clear texture when cooled.
Onion
Releases sweet, savoury flavour into the water as it simmers.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, herbal aroma and subtle green flavour to the stock.
Bovril
Adds concentrated meaty, savoury depth to the otherwise light liquid.

The step that matters

Boil until the gelatine dissolves. Gelatine must fully dissolve in the hot liquid; if it stays grainy or undissolved, it will not set or give the stock its intended body and clarity when cooled.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, clove, parsley, tarragon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, clove, parsley, tarragon. 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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