Skip to main content
Dessert

Consomme a LA Bo Yale

A custard made from consommé, eggs, salt, nutmeg, and butter, baked until firm and served in the consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,377 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Bo Yale

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Prepare a clear and bright consommé, lightly seasoned.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the yolks of 8 eggs, ½ pint of consommé, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of grated nutmeg.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered shallow mould.

Cook and set

  1. Place the mould in a pan with warm water, covering it, and cook over low heat or in a 350°F (175°C) oven until firm.

Cool and serve

  1. Cool the custard, turn it out of the mould, and cut it into diamonds, strips, or dice.

  2. Serve the cut custard in hot consommé.

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. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook gently.
Consommé
Adds savoury liquid flavour and moisture to the custard base.

The step that matters

Cook and set. Egg custard turns rubbery or grainy if it cooks too hot. Gentle heat in a water bath lets the proteins set slowly and evenly, keeping the texture smooth and tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes