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Stock for Sauces

A clear broth made by simmering meat, bones, and vegetables in water with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stock for Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut up the meat and chop the bones.

  2. Place them in a large pot and fill with cold water, using 1 quart for each pound of meat and bones.

Make the stock

  1. Add a little coarse sea salt and bring to a slow boil.

  2. Remove the scum that forms on the surface.

  3. Add prepared vegetables: carrot, turnip, onion, celery leaves, and parsley root.

  4. Simmer gently for 3 to 4 hours.

Strain

  1. Strain the stock and ensure all fat is removed.

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

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

  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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 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

Meat or meat trimmings
Provides savory flavor and body to the stock as it cooks in the water.
Bones
Release gelatin and collagen during long simmering, giving the stock body and richness.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and aroma as it softens and releases its flavor into the liquid.

The step that matters

Removing the scum and keeping the simmer gentle. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that cloud the stock and can taste bitter if left in. A gentle simmer keeps the liquid clear, while a hard boil emulsifies fat and cloudiness into it.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, turnip, celery, 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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