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Soup

Stock, Medium

A medium stock made from beef or veal bones, bacon, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Stock, Medium

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat or bacon into pieces about 3 inches square.

  2. Rub the butter on the bottom of a stewpan and add 1 pint of water.

Make the stock

  1. Add the meat and all other ingredients to the stewpan.

  2. Cover the stewpan and place it on a sharp fire, stirring occasionally.

  3. When the bottom of the pan is covered with a pale, jelly-like substance, add 4 quarts of cold water.

  4. Simmer very gently for 5 hours, skimming off any scum that forms.

Strain

  1. Strain the stock through a fine sieve.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + turniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Shin of beef or knuckle of veal
Collagen in the meat turns to gelatin, giving the stock body.
Poultry or fresh meat bones
Bones release collagen and minerals, adding body and richness to the stock.
Bacon or ham
Its cured, savoury flavour seasons the stock from within.
Onions
Cooked slowly, they add sweetness and a rounded aroma.
Carrots
They add gentle sweetness and colour to the stock.
Celery
It contributes a fresh, herbal aroma that rounds out the stock.

The step that matters

Keep the stock at a gentle simmer. A sharp boil agitates the fat and proteins, emulsifying them into the liquid and making the stock cloudy. A very gentle simmer lets scum and fat rise to be skimmed, keeping the stock clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, ham, butter, onion, turnip, carrot. 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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