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Soup

Good White Stock

A clear stock made from veal knuckle, poultry bones, ham, vegetables, and seasonings, simmered for five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Good White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and place it in a stewpan with the poultry bones and ham.

  2. Rub the stewpan with butter and moisten the ingredients with ½ pint of water.

  3. Simmer until the gravy begins to flow.

Make the stock

  1. Add 4 quarts of water, carrots, onions, celery, peppercorns, salt, mace, and herbs.

  2. Simmer for five hours.

  3. Skim and strain the stock through a fine sieve.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Gives body and gelatin, so the stock sets and feels rich in the mouth.
Bones and trimmings of poultry
Add gelatin and savoury flavour that builds the stock's depth.
Slices lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the background flavour of the stock.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic flavour as they soften during the long simmer.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury aroma that round out the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the gravy begins to flow. Boiling vigorously makes the stock cloudy and greasy, because agitation emulsifies fat and breaks up proteins. A gentle simmer keeps the stock clear and lets collagen slowly release gelatin from the bones.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, butter, carrot, onion, celery. 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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