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Consommé

A clear beef broth made by simmering lean beef, carrots, parsley, pepper, salt, and cloves, then straining to produce a gelatinous consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Consommé

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the beef in a clean pot or copper boiler.

  2. Add enough water to keep it boiling for a long time.

  3. Include the roasted carrots and parsley, but avoid onions, leeks, turnips, and cabbage.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and cloves to taste.

Make the broth

  1. Boil until the meat is shredded and the broth forms a strong jelly.

  2. Strain the broth through a clean cloth without pressing too hard.

Bottle and seal

  1. Pour the hot broth into rinsed bottles, leaving them open until cool.

  2. If there is little fat, add beef fat to form a seal over the jelly.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Breaks down during long boiling to release flavour and gelatin that set the broth into a jelly.
Roasted carrots
Add sweetness and a deeper, roasted aroma to the clear broth.
Beef fat
Forms a protective layer over the set jelly, sealing it from air.

The step that matters

Straining without pressing. Pressing the cloth pushes fine solids and fat through, which clouds the broth. A gentle pour keeps the consommé clear.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, parsley, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, parsley, 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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