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Vegetable Stock

A clear broth made by simmering carrots, turnips, onions, celery, parsley, and peas in water with butter, salt, pepper, and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Stock

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a stew-pan, combine the carrots, turnips, onions, butter, celery, and parsley.

  2. Fry the vegetables until they begin to turn red.

Make the stock

  1. Add the hot water and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  2. Stir in the salt, peppercorns, bouquet garni, and green peas.

  3. Simmer for one hour, skimming off any oil that rises.

  4. Strain the broth through a fine sieve into a basin.

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

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

Carrots
Provide sweetness and body to the stock as they soften and release flavour.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly peppery sweetness and body to the broth.
Onions
Add savoury depth and sweetness when fried and simmered.
Butter
Carries flavour from the fried vegetables and adds richness to the broth.
Celery
Contributes a fresh, savoury aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Fry the vegetables until they begin to turn red. Light browning through gentle frying develops savoury, caramelised flavour. Frying too hard can scorch the butter and make the stock bitter, so watch the colour closely.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, onion, butter, celery, parsley):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, onion, butter, celery, 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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