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Soup Stock

A clear broth made by simmering meat, bones, vegetables, herbs, and water for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the meat and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Chop the bones.

  3. Add the meat, bones, vegetables, and soup herbs to a large pot.

Simmer

  1. Pour the cold water over the ingredients and bring to a boil slowly.

  2. Skim off any foam if necessary, then cover and cook slowly for 6 hours.

Strain and chill

  1. Strain the stock and leave it uncovered in a cool place until cold.

  2. Remove the fat from the top of the stock.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Gives the stock its savoury, meaty flavour as it simmers.
Bones
Release gelatin and body into the liquid during long, slow cooking.
Vegetables
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil slowly and skim the foam. Starting with cold water and heating gradually lets impurities and foam rise to the surface, where they can be skimmed off. Boiling hard too early can emulsify fat and cloud the stock.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, celery, parsley, pepper. 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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