Why it works: Butter and parmesan cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,163 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Consomme a LA Florentine
Ingredients
Directions
Infuse the consommé
Tie the basil sprigs in a clean cloth.
Add the tied basil to the boiling consommé in a saucepan.
Cover the saucepan tightly.
Place it in a bain-marie for 3 hours.
Remove the basil.
Set the consommé aside.
Make the paste
Combine water, butter, and a pinch of salt in a saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Add flour and stir vigorously until a smooth paste forms.
Remove the mixture from heat.
Mix in eggs one at a time.
Add Parmesan cheese.
Transfer the paste to a pastry bag with a ¼ inch tube.
Cook and serve
Press the paste into slightly salted boiling water.
Cook for 5 minutes without boiling.
Drain the paste.
Add it to the consommé before serving.
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.
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Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,163 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Basil + parmesan cheesetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,599 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Basil + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,038 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the paste and give it structure as they set during cooking.
- Flour
- Thickens the butter and water mixture into a paste that holds its shape.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the paste a tender texture.
- Parmesan cheese
- Adds savory, salty flavor to the paste.
- Sweet basil
- Infuses the consommé with its aromatic herbal flavor.
The step that matters
Stir the flour into the boiling mixture until smooth. Cooking the flour in the hot liquid gelatinizes its starch and drives off excess moisture, so the paste forms a smooth dough. Undercooked or lumpy flour gives a pasty, floury texture, and the paste must be fully smooth before the eggs are added.
Swap the basil
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, egg, parmesan cheese):
- Capersfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Basilthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, parmesan cheese. 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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