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A savory liquid made by simmering beef bones, water, onions, carrot, turnip, celery, herbs, and parsley for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Break the bones into 8-10 pieces and place them in a large pot with 1 gallon of water.

  2. Simmer gently for 5-6 hours.

  3. Strain the liquid through a sieve into a basin and let it cool.

  4. Once cool, skim off the fat.

Add the vegetables and herbs

  1. Return the stock to the pot and add onions, carrot, turnip, celery (or celery seed), sweet herbs, and parsley.

  2. Simmer gently for additional flavor.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef bones
Release gelatin and collagen that give the stock body and a rich mouthfeel.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook down into the stock.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and a rounded background flavor.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, savory notes that balance the beef flavor.

The step that matters

Skimming the fat after cooling. Fat that stays in the stock turns greasy and can cloud the flavor. Once chilled, the fat rises and solidifies on top, so it lifts off cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley. 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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