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Stock for Clear Soup

A clear beef and veal stock made by simmering bones, meat, vegetables, and herbs for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 for Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove meat from bones, trim fat, and cut into small pieces.

  2. Chop bones, remove marrow, and wash in hot water along with giblets.

  3. Combine meat, bones, giblets, peppercorns, and water in a stockpot.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a boil slowly, skimming off white scum but leaving brown scum.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Add halved vegetables and simmer for at least 4 more hours.

Strain and chill

  1. Strain into a basin and let cool; remove fat once cold.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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
Provides meat and collagen that give the stock body and savory depth as it simmers.
Knuckle of veal
Adds bones and gelatin-rich connective tissue that give the stock a fuller body.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savory flavor to the stock as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aromatic flavor to the stock during simmering.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil slowly, skimming the white scum. Heating slowly lets impurities rise to the surface in a loose foam that can be skimmed off cleanly. Boiling hard would emulsify them into the liquid, leaving the stock cloudy and muddy in flavor.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, veal, carrot, celery. 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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