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Chicken Consomme, or Bouillon

A clear chicken broth made by simmering a whole chicken with aromatics and clarifying with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Make the stock

  1. Place the chicken in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Set the pot on the side of the stove and heat slowly without boiling for 1 hour.

  3. After 1 hour, bring to a gentle boil and cook for 3 hours until the chicken is tender and falls from the bones.

  4. Add the onion and celery, and cook gently for an additional hour.

  5. Transfer the soup to an earthenware bowl, cover, and let it cool with the chicken and vegetables.

Clarify and serve

  1. Remove the fat from the top and return the soup to the heat to melt the jelly from the bones.

  2. Strain the soup through a colander lined with muslin, allowing it to run through without pressing.

  3. To clarify, stir in the unbeaten white and broken shell of an egg while the soup is lukewarm.

  4. Heat the soup to a quick boil while stirring, then strain again without squeezing the cloth.

  5. 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.

  1. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Chicken + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Celery + white peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together853 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. 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

Chicken
Provides the meat flavour and the gelatin from the bones that gives the consommé body.
Egg white
Its proteins bind to impurities as they heat, trapping them so the strained broth becomes clear.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth to the broth during the long gentle simmer.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the broth during simmering.

The step that matters

Heating without boiling at the start. Keeping the pot just below a boil lets the chicken release flavour and fat gradually while the liquid stays clear. A rolling boil early emulsifies fat and clouds the stock.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, celery. 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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