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White Stock Soup

A clear veal stock soup made with knuckle of veal, bacon, herbs, and vegetables, finished with milk and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 Soup

about 5 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Cut the meat and crack the bones.

  2. Slice the carrots, turnips, and one onion, leaving the onion with the cloves whole.

  3. Combine the meat, mace, and all herbs except parsley in 2 quarts of cold water.

  4. Bring to a slow boil, skimming off any scum that rises.

  5. After 1 hour, add 1 gallon of cold water.

  6. Cover and cook gently for 4 hours.

  7. Strain the liquid, which should yield about 5 quarts.

  8. Rub the vegetables through a colander and remove bones and meat.

Chill and season

  1. Season the mixture and place it in a wide-mouth jar or large bowl.

  2. Add 3 quarts of well-salted stock and refrigerate when cool.

  3. Remove the fat from today's stock, season, and stir in chopped parsley.

Finish the soup

  1. In a saucepan, heat 1 cup of milk and stir in the floured butter, cooking for 3 minutes.

  2. After the soup has simmered for 10 minutes and been skimmed, pour it into a tureen and stir in the hot, thickened milk.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 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

Knuckle of veal
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin, giving the stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Starch that thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving the soup body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess when stirred into the soup.
Carrots
Pressed through a colander, they add body and natural sweetness to the soup.
Turnips
Pressed through a colander, they add body and a mild earthy flavor.
Lean bacon
Adds savory, smoky depth to the stock.

The step that matters

Cooking the floured butter in the milk for 3 minutes. Cooking flour in fat drives off its raw, pasty taste and lets the starch swell fully, so the milk thickens smoothly instead of staying grainy or floury.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, clove):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, 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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