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White Stock

A clear broth made by simmering veal or chicken with herbs, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the veal or chicken with the water.

  2. Add the herbs, salt, peppercorns, onion, celery, turnip, and carrot.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours. Skim off any foam that forms on the surface.

  4. Strain the stock through a fine sieve and discard the solids.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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 or whole chicken
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the water as it simmers, giving body to the stock.
Water
Acts as the cooking liquid that extracts flavor and gelatin from the bones and meat.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stock's background flavor.
Celery root or celery
Contributes aromatic, savory flavor to the stock.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam. Foam carries denatured proteins and impurities to the surface; removing it keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or greasy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, turnip, 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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