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Stock-broth

A clear soup made by simmering poultry or game bones with vegetables, herbs, and seasonings for 7–8 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

Stock-broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Collect all bones and carcasses of poultry or game.

  2. Place them in a large pot with water or the liquor from boiled beef, mutton, or veal.

  3. If available, add water from boiled ham after skimming off the fat.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add leeks, celery, onion with cloves, carrots, turnip, parsnip, salt, herbs, and sheep's melts.

  2. Cover and simmer slowly for 7-8 hours.

  3. Once reduced and flavorful, strain through a sieve and store for use.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Poultry or game bones and carcasses
Release collagen and body-building flavor into the liquid during long simmering.
Leeks
Add sweet, savory aromatic flavor to the broth base.
Onion with cloves
Contributes savory depth and aroma as it softens during simmering.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and rounded flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and keep it covered. A gentle simmer extracts flavor and gelatin from bones without clouding the liquid. A hard boil emulsifies fat and fine particles into the broth, making it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, leek, celery, onion, carrot, turnip. 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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