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Stock, and Clear Soups

A clear stock made from onions, carrots, turnips, leeks, parsnip, celery, clove, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stock, and Clear Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Skim and heat

  1. Remove all scum from the water and keep it below boiling point until removed.

  2. Bring the water to a boil after removing the scum.

Make the stock

  1. Place the chopped vegetables in a net and add to the stock pot.

  2. Insert the clove into the onion and add the bouquet garni of parsley, thyme, and bay leaf tied with twine.

  3. Reduce heat to a simmer when boiling resumes.

Finish

  1. Remove the vegetables by taking out the net when cooked.

  2. Remove the bouquet garni.

  3. Use the cooked vegetables as a garnish or for a salad.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

Onions
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stock as they cook slowly in the water.
Carrots
Release natural sugars that add gentle sweetness and roundness to the stock.
Leeks
Contribute a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the stock.
Turnips
Add a light, slightly peppery background flavour to the stock.
Celery
Adds fresh, herbal aroma that rounds out the stock's flavour.

The step that matters

Keep the stock below boiling after skimming. Hard boiling agitates the liquid and breaks up scum and fat into fine particles, clouding the stock. Gentle simmering lets impurities rise and collect on the surface so they can be removed, keeping the stock clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, leek, parsnip, celery, clove, 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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