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Consomm^ with Rice

A clear mutton consommé flavored with onion, carrot, turnip, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Consomm^ with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Wipe the mutton with a damp cloth.

  2. Cut off any dried outer skin.

  3. Dredge the meat with flour.

  4. Pour 1 quart of cold water over the meat.

  5. Soak for a few hours.

Make the broth

  1. Simmer covered for several hours.

  2. Strain the broth.

  3. Cover the bones and meat with cold water.

  4. Cook for another hour.

  5. Strain again.

  6. Combine with the first quantity of broth.

  7. Discard the bones and meat.

  8. Add salt to taste.

  9. Add the onion, carrot, and turnip.

  10. Cook until the vegetables are tender.

  11. Remove the vegetables for salad.

  12. Let the broth cool to take off the fat.

Finish the consommé

  1. Take 1 pint of the broth.

  2. Add the rice.

  3. Cook gently until the rice is tender.

  4. Add minced parsley just before serving 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Mutton shank
Gives the broth its meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Flour
Dredging the meat helps thicken the broth slightly and aids browning.
Rice
Softens as it cooks, adding starch and bulk to the finished consommé.
Onion, carrot, and turnip
Release sweetness and aromatic flavour into the broth as they cook.

The step that matters

Let the broth cool to take off the fat. Fat floats on hot broth and makes it greasy and cloudy; chilling lets it solidify on the surface so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, rice):

  1. Turmericfits about as well
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, onion, carrot, turnip, rice. 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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