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White Broth

A clear broth made from pig's feet, enriched with butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

White Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from the jelly-stock.

  2. Set aside enough fat for today's use.

  3. Cut the best part of the meat from the pig's feet into neat squares.

  4. Set aside the cut meat.

Make the broth

  1. Heat the jelly-stock with the boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Melt the butter over medium heat in another clean saucepan. Stir in the flour.

  3. Cook for five minutes, adding spoonfuls of soup to prevent browning.

  4. Gradually add the mixture to the soup.

  5. Add the pieces of meat.

  6. Season to taste.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Pour into a tureen.

  9. Add the boiling 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the broth with fat and helps the flour cook into a smooth base.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the broth.
Jelly-stock
Forms the savoury liquid base of the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Cook the flour and butter for five minutes. Flour must cook in fat long enough to lose its raw taste and thicken evenly. Adding spoonfuls of soup while cooking keeps the roux from browning and turning lumpy or dark, which would change the colour and flavour of the white broth.

“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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