Name: A Clear Brown Stock or Consomme for Soups
Ingredients: 1 knuckle of veal; 1 pound lean beef; 1 pound lean gammon of bacon; 2-3 scraped carrots; 2 onions; 2 turnips; 2 heads of celery; 2 quarts water

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 ↓

A Clear Brown Stock or Consomme for Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Slice the veal, beef, and bacon, and place them in a stewpan.
Add the scraped carrots, onions, turnips, and sliced celery.
Pour in 2 quarts of water and stew the mixture until the meat is tender, avoiding browning.

Use the stock

Use the stock for soup or brown/white gravy.
For brown gravy, add coloring and boil for a few minutes.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,585 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 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

Veal knuckle: Releases gelatin and flavor into the water, giving the stock body and richness.
Lean beef: Contributes meaty flavor to the stock as it stews slowly.
Lean gammon of bacon: Adds savory, salty depth to the stock.
Onions: Provide sweetness and aromatic flavor as they soften in the stock.

The step that matters

Stew without browning. Stewing gently keeps the stock clear and pale; browning or a hard boil would darken the color and cloud the liquid, so the meat must simmer slowly until tender.

Swap the onion

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

Leekfits better
Parsnipfits better
Onionthe original
Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, carrot, turnip, 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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A Clear Brown Stock or Consomme for Soups