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Stock, or Pot Au Feu

A clear stock made by simmering bones, meat, onion, parsley, carrots, and salt for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot 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 ↓

Stock, or Pot Au Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine cold water, bones, and meat in a large pot.

  2. Add the onion, parsley, and carrots.

  3. Do not let the mixture boil for the first half-hour; then simmer slowly and steadily, partly covered, for 4 to 5 hours.

  4. Skim the surface frequently to remove scum.

  5. Season with salt sparingly, adding a little at first and adjusting at the end.

Finish and serve

  1. Optionally, add a few drops of lemon juice, wine, or catsup just before serving.

  2. Strain the soup through a sieve or soup strainer before serving.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Meat + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Bones and meat
Release flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the broth body and richness.
Onion
Adds savoury, sweet aroma as it cooks into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Keep the broth from boiling in the first half-hour. Boiling early makes proteins and fats cloud and emulsify into the liquid, and breaks up scum that is harder to skim. A gentle simmer keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, onion, carrot, chicken):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, onion, carrot, chicken. 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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