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Consomme Soup

A clear beef and veal consommé made with shank, knuckle, 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 vegetables, cloves, and peppercorns, then boil hard for 1 hour.

  4. Reduce heat and simmer steadily for 6 hours.

  5. Add 2 gallons of water; if the broth is not rich enough, add up to 2 quarts more or simmer down after straining.

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

Shank of beef with sinew
Provides rich meat flavor and gelatin from connective tissue for body in the broth.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin from bones and joints, giving the stock a fuller, silkier body.
Onion
Contributes savory, sweet aroma as it cooks into the broth.
Black peppercorns
Release a mild, warm aromatic spice into the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer steadily, not hard, for 6 hours. A gentle simmer lets collagen slowly break down into gelatin while fat and impurities rise to the surface. Hard boiling emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes the broth cloudy, which matters for a clear consommé.

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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