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Consomme a LA Royale

A clear consommé made with egg, stock, salt, pepper, onion juice, served hot with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Royale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the royale

  1. Beat the egg and add salt, pepper, and onion juice.

  2. Pour the mixture into a small cup and place it in a pan of hot water.

  3. Cook until set.

  4. Turn out and cut into dice.

Serve

  1. Serve in the hot stock.

  2. Toast stale bread cut into cubes for croutons.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

  3. Egg + oniontop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,333 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Sets when heated, giving the royale its firm, custard-like body.
Stock
Forms the clear broth that carries the flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Cook until set. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat. In a hot water bath the custard stays smooth and tender, while high heat would make it curdle, weep, and turn rubbery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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