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Stock for Clear Soup

A clear beef and veal stock made by simmering bones, meat, and vegetables for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 for Clear Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove meat from bones, trim fat, and cut into small pieces.

  2. Chop bones, remove marrow, and wash in hot water along with giblets.

  3. Combine meat, bones, giblets, peppercorns, and water in a stockpot.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring to a boil slowly, skimming off white scum but leaving brown scum.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours.

  3. Add halved vegetables and simmer for at least 4 more hours.

  4. Strain into a basin and let cool; remove 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.

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 + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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

Shin of beef
Meat and bone release gelatin and flavour into the stock during long simmering.
Knuckle of veal
Bones add gelatin, giving the cooled stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Onion
Halved onion contributes savoury, aromatic sweetness to the simmering broth.
Carrot
Halved carrot adds mild sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum on the first boil. Bringing the stock to a boil slowly and skimming the white scum keeps the broth clear; the brown scum is left in, as the record directs. Lifting off the foam removes coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, veal, carrot, 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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