Skip to main content
Main

White Stock Soup

A clear soup made from veal knuckle, bacon, vegetables, and herbs, finished with a butter‑flour milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the veal and crack the bones.

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

  3. Combine the meat, sliced vegetables, 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, cover, and cook gently for 4 hours.

  6. Strain the stock, which should yield about 5 quarts.

  7. Rub the vegetables through a colander and pick out the bones and meat.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the meat and vegetables, then place them in a wide‑mouth jar or large bowl.

  2. Add 3 quarts of well‑salted stock and refrigerate.

  3. Remove the fat from the cooled stock, season, and stir in chopped parsley.

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

  5. After the soup has simmered for 10 minutes, pour it into a tureen and stir in the 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
Gives body and rich flavour to the stock as its bones and gelatin release during long simmering.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the milk added to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk when cooked with butter, giving the soup a smoother, creamier body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the savoury stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the stock as they cook slowly.

The step that matters

Adding the thickened milk to the soup. Hot milk can curdle or separate when it meets acidic or very hot liquid. Cooking the flour and butter first thickens the milk, and adding it to a gently simmering soup helps keep it smooth.

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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes