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A clear vegetable stock made by simmering carrots, onions, turnips, celery, sugar, salt, and water for six hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Stock

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 ↓

Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put all ingredients into a stockpot or large stewpan.

  2. Boil briskly, then reduce heat to simmer gently for 6 hours.

  3. Remove scum as it rises.

Strain and clear

  1. Strain stock through a colander into a large basin to clear it of meat and vegetables.

  2. Run it through a tammie cloth to remove small remnants.

  3. Let it cool in basins.

  4. Once cold, remove fat with a wooden spoon.

  5. Wipe the surface of the stock with a clean cloth dipped in warm water if needed.

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 + 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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Add sweetness and body, building the stock's base flavour as they simmer.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they cook slowly in the water.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the long-simmered broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour that rounds out the stock.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the stock throughout, bringing out the flavour of the vegetables.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after boiling briskly. A rolling boil for the full six hours makes the stock cloudy and emulsifies fat into it. Bringing it up briskly, then dropping to a gentle simmer, keeps the liquid clear and easier to skim.

Swap the onion

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

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

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