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Consomme Blanc De Volaille

A clear broth made from chicken, veal shank, and vegetables, simmered for hours and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek 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 ↓

Consomme Blanc De Volaille

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Place the dressed and trussed chickens and veal shank in a pot (9 to 10 inches in diameter).

  2. Fill the pot with cold or hot broth, covering the ingredients by ¾.

Simmer

  1. Heat the pot gently on the edge of the stove to allow a slow boil.

  2. Skim the broth to remove impurities.

  3. Add the carrots, onion, turnip, celery, and leeks to the pot.

  4. Simmer for 5 hours.

Finish

  1. Remove the fat, roots, and meats.

  2. Strain the consommé through a fine cloth or silk strainer.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 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

Chickens
Provide the main flavor and body for the clear broth as they simmer.
Veal shank
Adds gelatin-rich body and depth to the broth during long simmering.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and aromatic flavor to the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavor that rounds out the broth.
Leeks
Contribute mild aromatic flavor to the broth.

The step that matters

Keep the broth at a gentle simmer. A hard boil churns fat and particles into the liquid, making it cloudy. A slow simmer lets impurities rise and be skimmed off, keeping the consommé clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, veal, carrot, turnip, celery, leek):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, veal, carrot, turnip, celery, leek. 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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