Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓
White Stock
Ingredients
Directions
Place the veal bones in a pan with sliced onions, salt, herbs, peppercorns, and cloves.
Cover the ingredients with cold water and bring to a boil.
Skim off any foam, cover the pan, and reduce to a gentle boil for 1.5 hours.
Strain the stock, remove the fat, and use as needed.
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.
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Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together4,108 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,768 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,171 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal bones
- Release gelatin and savory flavor into the water as they simmer, giving the stock body.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock as they cook down.
The step that matters
Skim off the foam after boiling. Foam is made of coagulated proteins and impurities from the bones. Removing it early keeps the stock clear and prevents off flavors from mixing back in during the long simmer.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, thyme, parsley, clove):
- Carrotfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, thyme, parsley, 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.
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