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Soup

Consomme Soup

A clear beef and veal broth made with vegetables and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Consomme Soup

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 ↓

Consomme Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the beef and veal in a large pot on the back of the stove until it begins to boil.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes on the front of the stove.

  3. Add the chopped vegetables, cloves, and peppercorns.

  4. Boil hard for 1 hour.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer steadily for 6 hours.

  6. Add 2 gallons of water.

  7. If the broth is not rich enough after straining, simmer down further.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shank
Sinew and meat release gelatin and savory flavor into the broth, giving body.
Veal knuckle
Bones and connective tissue add gelatin, which gives the consommé body and mouthfeel.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it cooks into the stock.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor to the broth.
Black peppercorns
Add a mild, warm aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer steadily rather than boiling. A hard boil makes the broth cloudy by agitating fat and particles into it. A gentle simmer keeps the liquid clear while the gelatin and flavor are extracted slowly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, meat, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, meat, carrot, turnip, celery, parsley. 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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