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Clear Soup or Consomme

A clear beef consommé made with stock, shredded meat, egg whites, and optional sugar or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Clear Soup or Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove all fat from cold stock.

  2. Put the stock in a well-lined saucepan, add finely chopped or shredded meat, washed and crushed egg shells, and egg whites.

  3. Whisk all together over the fire until just boiling, then stop whisking.

  4. Allow the stock to boil.

Clarify

  1. Draw the pan to the edge of the fire.

  2. Cover with a plate.

  3. Let it stand for 15 minutes, keeping hot but not simmering.

  4. Strain through a warm, clean cloth into a basin, repeating until the soup is clear.

Finish

  1. Reheat the soup.

  2. Season to taste.

  3. Add a knot of sugar for sparkle if desired.

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. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Beef + sherrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together871 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 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

Good jellied stock
Provides the liquid body and flavour that the clarified consommé is built on.
Lean meat
Its proteins bind with the egg whites and trap cloudy particles so they can be strained out.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated and form a raft that collects impurities, clearing the broth.
Egg shells
Add calcium and rough surface area that helps the raft form and catch fine particles.

The step that matters

Keep the stock hot but not simmering during the 15-minute stand. Boiling or vigorous simmering breaks up the egg white raft and carries cloudy particles back into the liquid, so the consommé stays murky.

“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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