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Vegetable Stock

A vegetable stock made with turnip, carrot, parsnip, barley, and assorted vegetables simmered for two hours.

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.

  2. Scald the barley in boiling water for a few minutes.

Make the stock

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

  2. In another saucepan, melt the butter.

  3. Add the sliced onion, leek, minced celery, and sliced mushrooms to the butter.

  4. Add the herbs and white peppercorns.

  5. Cook covered for 10 minutes, shaking often to avoid browning.

  6. Transfer the cooked vegetables to the pot with the liquor.

  7. Before the first boil, add the coarse sea salt and a little white sugar.

  8. Boil for 2 hours, stirring often.

  9. Skim off any scum.

  10. 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 liquor
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the stock.
Pearl barley
Thickens the stock slightly and adds body as it cooks.
Butter
Carries the aromatic vegetables and adds a rich, rounded flavour.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks down.
Turnip
Contributes earthy sweetness and body to the stock.

The step that matters

Cook covered, shaking often. Shaking the pan during the 10-minute covered cooking keeps the butter and vegetables from browning. Browning would turn the stock dark and bitter instead of clear and mild.

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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