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Soup

Soup Stock, No. 1

A long-simmered stock of beef bones, veal shin bone, and an old chicken, with vegetables and seasonings, used as a base for meat soups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Soup Stock, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bones

  1. Have the butcher break the bones and place them in a soup kettle.

  2. Add enough clear water to cover the bones and stew on low heat for 8 hours, skimming off any scum that rises.

Cook the vegetables

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the turnip, onion, carrots, and celery, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the cover and stir until lightly browned, then transfer to the soup kettle.

Finish and strain

  1. Add all the seasonings and cook slowly for 2 more hours, adding water if it cooks down too much.

  2. Strain the stock through a sieve and rinse the meats with a little water.

  3. Let the stock cool overnight, then skim off the fat.

  4. Store in a cool place; this is the base for all meat soups.

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. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  5. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef bones
Release collagen and flavour into the water over a long, gentle simmer, giving the stock body.
Shin bone of veal
Adds gelatin-rich connective tissue that gives the stock a fuller, silkier body.
Old chicken
Contributes extra gelatin and savory depth to the long-simmered stock.
Onion
Browning in butter builds sweet, savory aroma that carries into the stock.
Carrots
Lightly browned in butter, they add gentle sweetness and aroma.

The step that matters

Keep the stock at a low simmer and skim it. A hard boil emulsifies fat and cloudy proteins into the liquid, making the stock greasy and murky. A gentle simmer lets fat and scum rise so they can be skimmed off, leaving a clearer, cleaner-tasting result.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, chicken, liver, carrot, celery, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, chicken, liver, carrot, celery, onion. 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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