Name: Chicken Consomme, or Bouillon
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken, 4 pounds, jointed; 4 quarts cold water; ½ onion, sliced; 2 stalks white celery; white pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste

Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chicken Consomme, or Bouillon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

Place the chicken in a large pot and cover with cold water.
Set the pot on the side of the stove and bring to a simmer; do not boil for at least 1 hour.
After 1 hour, simmer slowly for 3 hours until the chicken is tender and falls from the bones.
Add the onion and celery, and cook gently for an additional hour.

Chill and strain

Transfer the soup to an earthenware bowl, cover, and let it cool with the chicken and vegetables.
Remove the fat from the top, then heat the soup again to melt the jelly from the bones.
Strain the soup through a colander lined with muslin, allowing it to run through without pressing.

Clarify and serve

To clarify, stir in the unbeaten egg white and broken shell while the soup is lukewarm.
Continue stirring as it heats to a quick boil, then strain again without squeezing the cloth.
Serve hot or chilled.

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.

Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,814 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,375 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together853 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Onion + white peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,395 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken: Releases flavour and gelatin into the water as it simmers slowly, giving the consommé body.
Egg white: Its proteins coagulate as the soup heats, trapping cloudy particles so they can be strained out clear.
Celery: Adds aromatic depth to the broth during the final hour of gentle cooking.
Onion: Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth to the broth during gentle cooking.

The step that matters

Keep the soup at a simmer, not a boil, and do not press the strainer. Boiling early makes the broth cloudy by breaking up fat and proteins into fine particles. Pressing the solids forces cloudy material through the cloth, so the consommé stays clear only if the liquid is allowed to drip through on its own.