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A clear vegetable stock made by simmering carrots, turnip, onion, celery, herbs, and water for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Stock

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stick the cloves into the onion.

  2. Combine the carrots, turnip, onion, sweet herbs, celery, salt, and pepper in a saucepan.

Make the stock

  1. Pour in 1½ cups of water and stir until reduced to a glaze over brisk heat.

  2. Add 2 quarts of water and bring to a boil.

  3. Move to the side and let it simmer for 4 to 5 hours, skimming occasionally.

  4. Strain the stock through a fine sieve into a basin and let it cool to skim off the fat.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stock as they soften and release their flavour.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks down into the stock.
Celery
Adds aromatic, savoury flavour that rounds out the stock.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly sweet vegetable flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Reducing the vegetables to a glaze. Stirring over brisk heat until the water evaporates lightly browns the vegetables and concentrates their flavour. Caramelised sugars and browned compounds add depth to the finished stock, so the glaze should form without scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, clove, celery, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, clove, celery, pepper. 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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