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Soup

Plain Stock

A clear beef stock made with a leg or shin, optional meats, vegetables, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Plain Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beef leg or shin and break it in two or three places.

  2. Cover the beef with water and boil it slowly.

  3. Add any optional meats and bones if available.

Simmer

  1. Skim the surface regularly to remove impurities.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

  3. Add the carrot, celery, turnips, and onions.

  4. Simmer gently for 4 to 5 hours without wasting the liquid.

  5. Strain the stock before 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. Carrot + celerytop 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

Beef leg or shin
Provides rich flavour and gelatin from its connective tissue as it simmers slowly.
Fresh bones
Release gelatin and body into the liquid, giving the stock a fuller mouthfeel.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and savoury depth as they cook into the broth.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished stock.
Celery
Adds savoury, herbal aroma that rounds out the stock's flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface. Foam and impurities that rise early can cloud the stock and taint its flavour. Skimming regularly while it simmers keeps the liquid clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, rabbit, carrot, celery, 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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