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Soup

Game Stock

A savory stock made from game bones, vegetables, ham, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

Game Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Fry the sliced vegetables, bones, and ham in butter for about 20 minutes.

  2. Add the spices.

  3. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the stock.

Cool and skim

  1. Let it cool.

  2. Remove the fat from the top once cold.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 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 + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Game bones
Release gelatin and deep meaty flavour as they simmer into the liquid.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the stock as it fries and simmers.
Second stock
Forms the liquid base that the other flavourings are extracted into.
Mushrooms
Add earthy, savoury umami notes to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. A gentle simmer extracts flavour and gelatin from the bones without clouding the stock. A hard boil emulsifies fat and fine particles into the liquid, making it cloudy and greasy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, celery, leek, turnip, mushroom, clove):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, celery, leek, turnip, mushroom, clove. 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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