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Vegetable Stock

A clear stock made by simmering cabbage, onions, carrots, turnip, herbs, cloves, peppercorns, and butter in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Vegetable Stock

Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Wash the cabbage in cold water and cut it into quarters.

  2. Wash, scrape, and cut the carrots into quarters.

  3. Peel the turnip and cut it into quarters.

  4. Wash the onions, leaving the skins on.

  5. Put all the vegetables into a saucepan with the butter.

  6. Add the bunch of herbs, cloves, and peppercorns.

Make the stock

  1. Heat the saucepan and let the vegetables and herbs sweat in the butter for 10 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

  2. Pour in the cold water and add salt to taste.

  3. When the water boils, reduce the heat and let it simmer gently for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

  4. Strain the stock into a basin; it will yield about 2.5 quarts.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cabbage + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 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

Cabbage
Gives the stock its base body and sweet, savoury vegetable flavour as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth of flavour as they soften and release their sugars.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Turnip
Adds a mild, earthy sweetness and body to the stock.
Butter
Carries flavour from the herbs and vegetables during the initial sweating step, adding richness.

The step that matters

Sweating the vegetables in butter. Stirring over gentle heat for the full 10 minutes softens the vegetables and draws out flavour without browning or burning the butter, which would make the stock taste bitter.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, turnip, butter, clove, thyme, marjoram. 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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