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Vegetable Stock

A clear stock made by simmering carrots, onion, lettuce, celery, and parsnip with butter or dripping, salted and peppered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Vegetable Stock

Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine the carrot, onion, lettuce, celery, and parsnip in a stewpan.

  2. Add the butter or dripping and cover the stewpan tightly.

  3. Cook on low heat until the vegetables begin to soften.

Simmer and strain

  1. Pour in enough boiling water to completely cover the vegetables.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Let the stock simmer until reduced to pulp, about 4 hours.

  4. Skim and strain the liquid, setting it aside for use.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lettuce + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Celery + parsniptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together561 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter or dripping
Adds fat that softens the vegetables and carries flavour into the stock.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and savoury depth as it softens and breaks down.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour that forms the stock's background character.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body as it cooks down into the liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking the vegetables on low heat in a covered pan. Gentle, covered cooking softens the vegetables in their own moisture and fat without browning or scorching. Scorching at the base would give the stock a bitter, burnt taste.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, lettuce, celery, parsnip, butter, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, lettuce, celery, parsnip, butter, pepper. 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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