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White Stock

A clear broth made from veal knuckle, poultry bones, vegetables, and herbs simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot 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 ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the stock

  1. Combine veal, poultry bones, and water in a large pot.

  2. Add celery, carrot, turnip, onion, peppercorns, and herbs.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 4-6 hours.

  4. Strain the stock through a fine sieve, discarding solids.

Use

  1. Use the stock for white soups and sauces.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. 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
Adds body and gelatin, giving the stock a fuller, richer mouthfeel.
Poultry bones and trimmings
Contribute collagen and savory flavor to the stock as they simmer.
Celery, carrot, turnip, and onion
Provide aromatic background flavor that rounds out the stock without colouring it.

The step that matters

Keep the simmer gentle. A hard boil emulsifies fat and clouds the stock, while a gentle simmer over several hours lets collagen and flavor release slowly and keeps the liquid clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, celery, 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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