Name: Consomme Salburg
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon carrot pellets; 1 tablespoon turnip pellets; 1 tablespoon royale made from asparagus heads; 12 small chicken-forcemeat quenelles; 1 tablespoon green peas; 1 quart boiling consomme

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Consomme Salburg

Ingredients

1 tablespoon carrot pellets
1 tablespoon turnip pellets
1 tablespoon royale made from asparagus heads
12 small chicken-forcemeat quenelles
1 tablespoon green peas
1 quart boiling consomme

Directions

Prepare the garnish

Boil the carrot and turnip pellets in water until just tender.
Poach the chicken-forcemeat quenelles until cooked through.
Cut the royale into slices.

Assemble and serve

In a soup tureen, combine the carrot and turnip pellets, quenelles, royale slices, and green peas.
Pour the boiling consommé over the garnish and serve.

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.

Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Turnip + asparagustop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together328 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together808 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + asparagustop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together571 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,994 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken-forcemeat quenelles: Provide a delicate, tender texture that holds its shape in the hot consommé.
Royale made from asparagus heads: Adds a set, custard-like texture and a light vegetable flavour to the soup.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, asparagus, chicken):

Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, asparagus, chicken. 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.