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Potage De Vermicelle Aü Consommé

A clear consommé made from chicken, veal, vegetables, and vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Potage De Vermicelle Aü Consommé

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.

Make the broth

  1. Add the chickens and veal to a large pot and cover with water.

  2. Skim the surface to remove impurities.

  3. Add the carrots, turnips, onions, leek, celery, and pepper.

  4. Simmer for 5 hours.

  5. Degrease the broth.

  6. Remove the meats.

Clarify and strain

  1. Mix an egg white with a little cold broth to clarify.

  2. Bring the clarified broth to a boil.

  3. Strain the broth.

  4. Return the broth to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring the broth to a boil again.

  2. Add the vermicelli, which has been briefly blanched and drained, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.

  3. Serve.

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
Give the broth its main body and rich poultry flavour during the long simmer.
Veal
Adds gelatin-rich body and depth to the broth as it simmers.
Egg white
Its proteins bind to fine particles and rise to form a raft that clarifies the broth.
Vermicelli
Thin pasta that adds texture and bulk to the clear broth.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Clarify the broth with egg white. The egg white must be mixed in cold and the broth brought to a boil gently. Stirring or boiling too hard breaks up the raft, leaving the consommé cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the onion

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

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

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