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Common Stock, or Grand Stock for General Purposes

A large pot of veal and beef stock simmered with root vegetables and seasoned lightly with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Common Stock, or Grand Stock for General Purposes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the veal by cutting out the noix or fricandeau pieces and set them aside for later use.

  2. Cut all the meat away from the bones, keeping veal separate from beef.

  3. Break up the bones and place them in a large stock pot half full.

  4. Fill the pot with cold water and set it on the fire to boil.

Simmer and skim

  1. Skim the broth well.

  2. Garnish with carrots, turnips, celery, and leeks.

  3. Use salt sparingly and avoid spices or herbs.

  4. Let the broth boil gently for 7 hours.

Strain and store

  1. Strain the broth through a broth napkin into large kitchen basins to cool.

  2. Store the basins in the larder for the next day's 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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 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

Veal legs and knuckles
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin, giving the stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Gravy beef
Adds meaty, deep beef flavour to the broth as it simmers slowly.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth.
Leeks
Contribute mild, savoury onion-like aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Skim the broth well. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that rise as the liquid heats. Leaving them in makes the stock cloudy and greasy, so it needs attention while the broth is coming to a boil.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

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