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Four Quarts of White Stock

A clear stock made from veal knuckle, cowheel, old fowl, turnip, onions, lettuce, mace, nutmeg, ham, salt, sweet herbs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Four Quarts of White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine veal knuckle, cowheel, old fowl, turnip, onions, lettuce, mace, nutmeg, ham, salt, sweet herbs, and water in an iron pot.

  2. Simmer gently for 6 hours, skimming frequently.

  3. Strain into an earthen dish and let cool.

Finish

  1. Once cold, remove the fat.

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. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 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
Provides gelatin and body, so the stock sets rich and silky when chilled.
Cowheel
Adds gelatin, giving the finished stock body and a smooth mouthfeel.
Old fowl
Contributes savory meat flavor and additional gelatin to the simmered stock.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savory depth that rounds out the flavor of the stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and skim. A hard boil emulsifies fat and cloudies the stock, while gentle simmering keeps it clear. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that would otherwise muddy the flavor.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, turnip, onion, lettuce, nutmeg, ham):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, turnip, onion, lettuce, nutmeg, ham. 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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