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Common Stock, or Grand Stock for General Purposes

A stock made from veal and beef bones, simmered with carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Common Stock, or Grand Stock for General Purposes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Order the meat the night before if possible.

  2. Cut out the fricandeau pieces from the veal and set aside for later use.

  3. Cut all meat away from the bones, keeping veal separate from beef.

  4. Break up the bones and place them in a large stock pot half full of cold water.

Cook

  1. Set the pot on the fire.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim well.

  3. Garnish with carrots, turnips, celery, and leeks, using salt sparingly.

  4. Boil gently for seven hours.

Strain and store

  1. Strain through a broth napkin into large kitchen basins to cool.

  2. Place the basins in the larder for the next day's use.

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. Turnip + leektop 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. Turnip + celerytop 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

White veal
Contributes gelatin and a delicate, rich flavour to the stock body.
Gravy beef
Adds deeper, beefy flavour and body to the finished stock.
Leg of beef and knuckles of veal
Bones and connective tissue release gelatin, giving the stock body and mouthfeel.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aromatic depth as the stock simmers.
Celery
Adds a fresh, vegetal aroma that rounds out the stock's flavour.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and skim well. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that would otherwise cloud the stock and make it greasy. Starting with a gentle, rolling heat helps keep the broth clear.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, carrot, turnip, leek. 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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