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Soup Stock

A clear soup stock made by simmering a soup bone with vegetables, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Soup Stock

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 ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the meat from the soup bone and brown it in hot butter over medium heat.

  2. Place the browned meat and bone in a soup kettle and cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil over low heat, which will take about 1 hour.

  4. Simmer gently for 4 hours.

Add the vegetables and seasonings

  1. Add the turnip, carrots, onion, celery, cabbage leaves, bay leaf, mace, cloves, peppercorns, red pepper, and salt.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour longer, then cool.

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 + celerytop 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. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup bone
Releases gelatin and flavor into the water as it simmers, giving the stock body and richness.
Butter
Browns the meat first, adding roasted, savory flavor to the finished stock.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens and flavors the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and aromatic flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Browning the meat in butter. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates deeper, roasted flavors. Meat that is pale or steamed instead of browned gives a flatter, less savory stock.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, cabbage, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, turnip, carrot, onion, celery, cabbage, clove. 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.

More soup stock recipes

Clear 33White 28Brown 9Clarified 7 See all 71 →

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