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White Stock

A clear stock made from veal knuckle, lean beef, and aromatics simmered for five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the veal from the bone and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Cut the beef into smaller pieces.

Make the stock

  1. Put the meat and bones into a kettle and add the cold water.

  2. Bring slowly to a boil and skim carefully.

  3. Add the peppercorns, onion, celery, bay leaf, and salt.

  4. Simmer for five hours.

  5. Strain twice through several layers of cheesecloth to achieve a clear 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.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Provides gelatin and body, so the stock sets and feels rich when cooled.
Lean beef
Adds deep, savoury meat flavour to the long-simmered stock.
Cold water
Extracts flavour and gelatin gradually from the bones and meat as it heats.

The step that matters

Bring slowly to a boil and skim carefully. Starting in cold water and heating gently lets impurities and coagulated proteins rise to the surface, where they can be skimmed off. Boiling hard too early emulsifies them into the liquid, leaving the stock cloudy and greasy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celerythe original
  3. Pepperfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, 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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