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Consomme Soup

A clear meat broth clarified with egg whites, served with turnips and carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Consomme Soup

Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Boil the meat in water for 4 hours.

  2. Let it cool.

  3. Remove the fat from the stock.

  4. Heat the stock in a boiler.

Clarify the stock

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg whites, salt, pepper, and cold water. Beat until mixed.

  2. When the stock is tepid, add the egg whites and shells.

  3. Stir with two forks.

  4. Once it boils, let it cook for 3 minutes.

  5. Strain through a clean kitchen towel.

Color and serve

  1. Add a little browning to color the stock.

  2. Boil turnips and carrots for 10 minutes.

  3. Place them in a tureen and pour the stock over.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Meat + carrottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Releases flavor and gelatin into the water, giving the stock its body and savoriness.
Egg whites
Coagulate as they heat, trapping particles so the stock comes out clear.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg white mixture into the stock. Egg whites must be added when the stock is only tepid and stirred gently. If the stock is stirred vigorously or the whites are added too hot, they break up instead of forming a raft that clears the broth.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, pepper, carrot. 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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