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Chicken Consomme

A clear chicken broth made by simmering a whole chicken, lean beef, celery, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Chicken Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a large pot, place the whole chicken and cover it with water.

  2. Add the lean beef and coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for several hours.

  4. Add the celery and cook until the chicken is tender.

Strain and serve

  1. Remove the chicken, allowing the beef to remain in the stock.

  2. Strain the stock to remove solids before serving.

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. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Chicken + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole chicken
Provides the main flavor and body of the stock as it simmers.
Lean beef
Adds deeper savory flavor to the stock while it simmers.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the stock during the final part of cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. A rolling boil makes the stock cloudy by agitating fat and proteins into it. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer lets impurities rise and collect for skimming, giving a clearer consommé.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Pepperfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, beef. 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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