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White Stock

A clear broth made by simmering fowl with aromatics and butter, then strained and chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the fowl in a pot, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and let it simmer for six hours, skimming occasionally.

  3. Add onions, celery, mace, cinnamon, and butter, then boil slowly for one hour.

  4. Strain the stock and cool it quickly.

Store

  1. In the morning, remove all the fat and pour the jelly into a deep dish, scraping off any sediment.

  2. Store in a cool place in a stone pot. It keeps for one week in winter and three days in summer.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl
Provides the meat and collagen that give the stock its body and natural jelly.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished stock.
Celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal aroma that rounds out the stock's flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and mouthfeel; optional if the fowl is already fatty.

The step that matters

Skim the simmering stock. Impurities and excess fat rise to the surface during simmering; skimming them keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting, while skipping it leaves a cloudy, greasy result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, onion, celery, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, onion, celery, cinnamon, butter. 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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