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Medium Stock

A savory stock made from beef or veal, poultry bones, bacon, vegetables, and seasonings, simmered for five hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Medium Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Rub the butter on the bottom of a large pot.

Make the stock

  1. Add ½ pint of water and the meat, cover, and place on high heat, stirring occasionally.

  2. When the bottom of the pot is covered with a pale firm gravy, add the 4 quarts of cold water and the other ingredients.

  3. Simmer for 5 hours, removing any scum that forms.

Strain and store

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef or veal
Supplies collagen and meaty flavour that enriches the stock during long simmering.
Bones
Release gelatin and body into the liquid, giving the stock a fuller mouthfeel.
Lean bacon or ham
Adds savoury, smoky depth to the background flavour of the stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook slowly in the liquid.
Celery
Adds aromatic vegetable flavour that rounds out the stock.
Butter
Helps the meat brown lightly on the pot base, building a richer, deeper flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming scum during the simmer. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that can cloud the stock and taste bitter if left to recirculate. Removing it keeps the stock clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the clove

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

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

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