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Grand Consomme

A clear consommé made from veal, beef, fowl, rabbit, partridges, vegetables, and stock, simmered for hours and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Grand Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine veal, beef, fowl, rabbit, and partridges in a pot.

  2. Add 1 cup of soup and stir well until it jellies.

  3. Pour in 2 quarts of clear stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Skim the surface carefully and season with turnips, carrots, onions, leeks, and celery.

  5. Let it simmer for 4 hours.

  6. Strain through a sieve into a clean container and cool for later use.

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. Turnip + carrottop 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. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckles
Release gelatin and body into the stock as they simmer for a rich mouthfeel.
Fowl
Adds meaty flavour and gelatinous body to the stock during long simmering.
Soup
Its proteins and gelatin help bind the meats and set the stock to jelly.
Turnips
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished stock.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished stock.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Skim the surface carefully. Skimming removes coagulated proteins and fat that would otherwise cloud the stock. A clear consommé depends on keeping it gently simmering and skimmed rather than boiling hard.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, rabbit, turnip, carrot, onion, leek. 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.

More consommé recipes

Chicken 21Veal 18Soup 15Vegetable 11Rice 8Custard 7 See all 50 →

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