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Stock Without Meat

A clear vegetable stock made by simmering carrots, turnips, onions, lettuce, celery, chervil, cabbage, and parsnip with water and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 396 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stock Without Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Combine carrots, turnips, onions, lettuces, celery, chervil, cabbage, and parsnip in a stew pan.

  2. Add butter and 1 quart of water; stew until the liquid is nearly evaporated.

  3. Fill the stew pan with more water, then add peas and chives.

Finish and strain

  1. Season with pepper and salt; stew slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Strain through a colander for 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. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour from the vegetables into the stock.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and body as they soften during the long stew.
Onions
Provide savoury depth and aroma as they break down in the liquid.
Peas
Add natural sweetness and body to the stock.

The step that matters

Stewing slowly until the liquid nearly evaporates. Reducing the liquid concentrates flavour, but if it boils too hard or dries out, the vegetables can scorch and turn bitter. Keeping the heat gentle and adding water as directed lets the vegetables release their flavour without catching on the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, lettuce, celery, chervil, cabbage, parsnip):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Endivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, lettuce, celery, chervil, cabbage, parsnip. 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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