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Soup Stock

A hearty beef and veal stock made by simmering bones, vegetables, and seasonings for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Soup Stock

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soup Stock

about 3 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine the beef, veal, bones, onion, celery, carrot, bay leaves, parsley, and turnip in a large pot.

  2. Cover the pot and place it on a low heat for 2 hours to allow the juices to drain.

  3. After 2 hours, move the pot to a warmer spot, stir well, and cook slowly for an additional 5 hours without boiling.

  4. Once done, remove from heat, add salt and pepper, and pour into a clean stock pot or jar.

Chill and strain

  1. Cover and refrigerate overnight to allow the fat to solidify on top.

  2. The next day, remove the fat, strain the liquid through a colander, and squeeze the meat to extract all nutrients.

  3. You should have about 3 quarts of strong stock; store it in a clean jar for future soups.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Celery + carrottop 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Lean beef
Releases flavour and gelatin-rich body into the liquid during long, slow cooking.
Veal
Adds savoury depth and a fuller, more gelatinous texture to the stock.
Bones
Release collagen and minerals that give the stock body and a rich mouthfeel.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the stock.
Celery
Adds vegetal aroma that rounds out the stock's flavour.

The step that matters

Cook without boiling. Boiling emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes the stock cloudy and greasy. A gentle simmer keeps it clear and lets collagen slowly break down into gelatin.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, mutton, celery, carrot, parsley, 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.

More soup stock recipes

Clear 33White 28Brown 9Clarified 7 See all 71 →

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