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Stock Sauces

A rich stock sauce made with ham, veal, rabbits, hens, and aromatics, simmered to a glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Stock Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pans

  1. Grease the bottom of two stew pans with fresh butter.

  2. Layer sliced ham and veal in each pan.

  3. Add whole rabbits to one pan.

  4. Add old hens to the other pan.

  5. Pour enough grand stock into each pan to cover the veal.

  6. Cover the pans.

Reduce the glaze

  1. Boil sharply until the broth reduces to a glaze.

  2. Reduce heat by adding charcoal ashes.

  3. Return the pans to the fire.

Make the sauce

  1. Add 1 pound of glaze to the brown sauce.

  2. Reduce the sauce with the stock.

  3. Wait until the white sauce reaches a pale glaze.

  4. Fill the sauce up with grand stock.

  5. Garnish the white sauce with carrot, onion, cloves, mace, and the herb bouquet.

  6. Boil the sauce.

  7. Skim well.

  8. Simmer gently on the side of the stove.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean ham
Adds savory, meaty flavor to the stock as it cooks down.
Veal
Contributes body and gelatin, giving the reduced stock a rich texture.
Wild rabbits
Adds deep meaty flavor to the stock base.
Old hens
Adds savory depth and body to the stock base.
Grand stock
Forms the liquid base that reduces into the glaze and sauce.

The step that matters

Boil sharply until the broth reduces to a glaze. Reducing concentrates the gelatin and flavor of the meats. If heat is too low or the pans are left uncovered too long, the broth may not thicken or may over-reduce and scorch on the bottom.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, rabbit, carrot, onion, clove, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, rabbit, 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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