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Stock for Soup

A rich stock made from beef and veal bones, vegetables, and salt, simmered for five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stock for Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and bone

  1. Remove all meat from the beef bone with a sharp knife.

  2. Trim all fat from the meat and set it aside for other uses.

  3. Break the bone in half and remove the marrow, setting it aside.

  4. In a large stock pot, combine the meat and bone.

Add water and vegetables

  1. Pour in 5 pints of cold water (1 pint per pound of meat plus 1 extra).

  2. Add ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt to help the scum rise.

  3. Cover the pot and bring it to a quick boil.

  4. Skim the scum from the stock as it rises.

  5. Scrape and cut the carrots into pieces.

  6. Peel and quarter the turnip and onion.

  7. Wash the leek and celery in cold water.

  8. Add all the vegetables to the pot and let it simmer gently for 5 hours.

  9. Occasionally skim the stock and add a little cold water to help the scum rise.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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 + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin or veal knuckle
Breaks down into gelatin and rich meaty flavor as it simmers, giving the stock body.
Beef bone
Releases collagen and marrow flavor during long simmering, thickening the stock and adding depth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onion
Contributes savory sweetness and aroma as it cooks down into the liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the stock heats. Removing it keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting; leaving it in makes the broth cloudy and muddy in flavor.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, leek, 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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