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Soup Stock

A clear stock made from beef or mutton, carrots, turnips, onion, bacon, and water.

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

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Soup Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Combine

  1. Put the meat into a saucepan.

  2. Add the carrots, turnips, onion, and bacon.

  3. Pour the boiling water over the mixture.

Cook

  1. Let it simmer over low heat until it begins to stick to the bottom.

  2. Boil on high heat for 30 minutes.

Finish

  1. Skim off the fat.

  2. Strain through a sieve or cloth.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 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

Beef or mutton
Gives the stock its meaty flavour and body as it simmers.
Carrots
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Turnips
Add earthy, gently sweet flavour to the broth.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma, with the clove adding a subtle spice.
Fat bacon
Adds richness and savoury, smoky flavour that carries into the broth.

The step that matters

Skim off the fat. Fat rendered from the meat and bacon rises to the surface during cooking. If it is not skimmed off before straining, the stock will taste greasy and look cloudy with floating droplets.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, 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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