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Stock for Clear Soup, to Clarify

A clarified stock made from vegetables, herbs, egg white, and beef, used for clear soup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stock for Clear Soup, to Clarify

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, wash, and chop the onions or leeks, carrot, and celery.

  2. In a clean stewpan, combine the chopped vegetables, thyme, marjoram, tarragon, chervil, peppercorns, egg white and shell, lemon juice, and vinegar.

  3. Stir with a whisk and add the finely chopped beef moistened with a little cold water.

Make the stock

  1. Pour in the cold stock and bring to a boil while whisking.

  2. Remove from heat and let it simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Season to taste with salt and strain through a clean cloth.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Marjoram + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Thyme + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together528 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg white and shell
Coagulates as it heats, collecting fine particles so the stock becomes clear.
Finely chopped beef
Adds meaty flavour and body, and its proteins help clarify the stock as they set.
Onions or leeks
Provide sweet, savoury aromatic flavour as the base of the stock.
Cold stock
Forms the liquid base that the flavourings and clarifying agents infuse and clear.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil while whisking. Whisking while the stock heats keeps the egg white and beef from clumping onto the bottom. As the mixture warms, the egg and meat proteins rise and trap fine particles, which gives a clear result. Stopping the whisking too early can leave the stock cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, thyme, marjoram, tarragon, chervil, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, thyme, marjoram, tarragon, chervil, egg. 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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