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White Stock

A clear stock made by simmering cracked bones with vegetables, herbs, salt, and water for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

White Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the bones into small pieces.

  2. Scrape the carrot, and peel the onion and turnip.

  3. Tie the herbs in a small piece of muslin.

Simmer

  1. Put the bones, vegetables, herbs, and salt into a large saucepan.

  2. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface well, then reduce heat and simmer for 4 hours.

Cool and store

  1. Pour the stock into a wide basin and let it cool.

  2. Once cold, remove the fat and use the stock for soups, sauces, etc.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. 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

Cracked bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the water during long simmering, giving body to the stock.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Turnip
Adds mild earthy flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Skim the surface well. Proteins and impurities rise as foam when the liquid first heats. Removing them before simmering keeps the stock clear and clean-tasting rather than cloudy or scummy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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