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A savory broth made by simmering beef or veal bones with vegetables, herbs, and seasonings for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Stock

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat and bacon or ham into 3-inch pieces.

  2. Rub the butter on the bottom of a stewpan.

  3. Add ½ pint of water, the meat, and all other ingredients to the stewpan.

Make the stock

  1. Cover the stewpan and place it on the stove, stirring occasionally.

  2. When the bottom of the pan is covered with a pale, jelly-like substance, add 4 quarts of cold water.

  3. Simmer gently for 5 hours, ensuring it does not boil quickly.

  4. Remove any scum that forms and strain the stock through a fine sieve.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + carrottop 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. Clove + turniptop 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

Beef shin or veal knuckle
Breaks down into gelatin and body that gives the stock a rich, full texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they cook slowly in the stock.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and aromatic flavor to the stock.
Bacon or ham
Adds salty, smoky fat and meaty flavor to the liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without a rolling boil. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and cloudies the liquid, and it can toughen the meat proteins. Gentle simmering keeps the stock clear and lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, ham, butter, onion, turnip, carrot):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, ham, butter, onion, turnip, carrot. 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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