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A Good Stock for Soups

A stock made from beef, fowl, ham bone, vegetables, and seasonings, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Good Stock for Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the beef, fowl, and ham bone into pieces and place in a large soup pot.

  2. Add enough water to cover the meat and bring to a boil for 2 hours.

  3. After 2 hours, add 6 quarts of water and boil for an additional 30 minutes.

Simmer and finish

  1. Skim the surface thoroughly, then add the carrots, onions, turnips, celery, cloves, and salt.

  2. Let the stock boil for 4 hours, then remove any grease from the top.

  3. Strain the stock through a sieve into earthen pans and set aside for use.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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 leg or shin
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the broth during long simmering.
Old fowl
Adds rich chicken flavor and body to the stock as it cooks.
Ham bone
Contributes smoky, salty savory depth to the broth.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic flavor to the stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down.
Celery
Adds aromatic, herbal flavor that rounds out the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface before adding vegetables. Skimming removes foam and coagulated impurities that would otherwise cloud the stock and taint its flavor. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, carrot, onion, turnip, 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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