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Consomme Royal

A clear beef and chicken consommé enriched with a custard made from eggs, milk, and a small amount of consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 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 Royal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine 4 quarts of cold water, beef, and coarse sea salt in a soup kettle.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Add the chicken, carrot, turnip, leek, onion, cloves, and bay leaf.

  4. Boil slowly for 4 hours.

  5. Strain the broth.

  6. Return the broth to the kettle.

  7. Stir in the beaten egg white.

  8. Bring to a boil again.

  9. Strain once more.

Make the royal custard

  1. Mix the egg yolks, whole egg, pepper, salt, milk, and ¼ pint of consomme to make the royal custard.

  2. Butter a small cup or mold.

  3. Fill it with the custard.

  4. Bake slowly until solid.

  5. Once cooled, cut the custard into small dice.

Serve

  1. Serve the diced custard in the soup.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Beef + chickentop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the broth its deep meaty flavor and body as it simmers for hours.
Chicken
Adds savory depth and gelatin-rich body to the clear broth.
Egg white
Its proteins coagulate and collect impurities, clarifying the broth into a clear consommé.
Egg yolks
Their proteins set the custard, giving it a firm, sliceable texture when baked.
Whole egg
Provides protein to help the custard set firm and hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, leaving the custard softer and more tender.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg white and bring to a boil again. Egg white proteins must coagulate slowly as the broth heats, trapping cloudy particles. Stirring it in and reheating to a boil lets them form a raft that clarifies the broth. Boiling too vigorously before the raft forms can cloud the consommé.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, chicken, carrot, turnip, leek, onion, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, chicken, carrot, turnip, leek, onion, egg. 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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