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Vegetable Stock

A clear vegetable stock made with barley, turnip, carrot, parsnip, onion, leek, celery, mushrooms, herbs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Vegetable Stock

Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the pearl barley in several waters, then scald it in boiling water for a few minutes.

Sweat the vegetables

  1. In a large pot, combine the vegetable broth, turnip, carrot, parsnip, and scalded barley.

  2. In another saucepan, melt the butter and add the onion, leek, celery, mushrooms, herbs, and peppercorns.

  3. Cook the vegetables for 10 minutes, covered, shaking often to sweat them without browning.

  4. Transfer the cooked vegetables to the pot with the broth and bring to a boil.

Simmer and strain

  1. Add the sugar and salt just before boiling, skimming off any scum that forms.

  2. Boil for 2 hours or longer, stirring often to prevent the barley from burning.

  3. Strain the stock for use as needed.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Barley + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Vegetable broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the vegetables.
Pearl barley
Thickens the stock slightly as its starch releases during long simmering.
Butter
Carries flavour from the aromatics and helps sweat the vegetables gently.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and sweetness as it softens in the butter.
Leek
Contributes a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the stock.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stock.

The step that matters

Sweating the vegetables without browning. Covered, gentle cooking in butter softens the vegetables and releases their flavour. Browning would give a darker, more roasted taste than a clear stock needs.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, turnip, carrot, parsnip, barley, butter, leek):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, turnip, carrot, parsnip, barley, butter, leek. 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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