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Game Stock

Game Stock is a clarified broth made by simmering game vegetables and herbs with stock, clarified with beef and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and turnip 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 ↓

Game Stock

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. In a stew pan, melt the butter or fat over medium heat.

  2. Add the diced onions, leek, carrot, celery, turnip, herbs, mushrooms, and mignonette pepper.

  3. Cover the pan and fry the mixture for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.

Make the stock

  1. Add enough stock to cover the contents, bring to a boil, then strain.

  2. Simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours, then strain again when cold and remove any fat.

Clarify

  1. To clarify, mix ½ pound of raw beef and 4 egg whites for each quart of stock.

  2. Chop the beef finely, mix with egg whites, and add to the stock.

  3. Stir occasionally until it boils, then simmer gently for about 1 hour and strain.

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. Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 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

Butter or fat
Carries the heat and softens the vegetables without browning them, building a mild base flavour.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften into the base.
Leek
Adds a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the stock.
Carrot
Contributes natural sweetness and body to the stock.
Raw beef (in the method)
Its proteins bind to impurities as they set, so they can be lifted out and leave the stock clear.
Egg whites (in the method)
Coagulate with the beef as the stock heats, trapping particles into a raft for clarifying.

The step that matters

Clarifying the stock with the beef and egg white mixture. Stirring the stock only until it begins to boil, then simmering gently, lets the egg white and beef raft form and trap cloudy particles. Vigorous boiling breaks the raft apart and leaves the stock cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, leek, carrot, celery, turnip, thyme, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, leek, carrot, celery, turnip, thyme, parsley. 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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