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Vegetable Stock, for Soups, Sauces, Etc.

A clear stock made by simmering water with beans, peas, celery, carrot, onion, mace, cloves, parsley, herbs, peppercorns, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vegetable Stock, for Soups, Sauces, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine water, haricot beans, split peas, celery, carrot, onion, mace, cloves, parsley, and herbs.

  2. Add peppercorns and coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Skim off any foam and strain the liquid.

Use

  1. Use the stock as a base for soups and sauces.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Add body and starch, thickening the stock slightly as they cook.
Split peas
Break down during simmering, adding body and a fuller texture to the liquid.
Onion
Releases sweet, savoury flavour compounds into the simmering liquid.
Celery
Contributes savoury, aromatic flavour to the base as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam. Foam carries impurities and proteins from the vegetables and beans to the surface. Skimming it keeps the stock clear and free of bitter or cloudy off-flavours.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, peas, celery, carrot, onion, clove, parsley):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, peas, celery, carrot, onion, clove, parsley. 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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