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Consomme a LA Bowdoix- -consomme, Bowdoin Fashion

A clear chicken consommé garnished with tomatoes, asparagus, chicken quenelles, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 128 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Bowdoix- -consomme, Bowdoin Fashion

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Garnish the rich chicken consommé with fresh tomatoes cooked in the consommé.

  2. Add 13 green asparagus tips.

  3. Include red chicken quenelles and a pinch of chervil.

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. Asparagus + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Tomato + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Chicken + asparagustop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Tomato + cherviltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh tomatoes
Add fresh flavour and a bright, slightly acidic note to the clear consommé.
Green asparagus tips
Add a tender, crisp-textured vegetable contrast to the smooth broth.
Red chicken quenelles
Provide a soft, delicate chicken garnish that contrasts with the clear broth.

Swap the chervil

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, tomato, asparagus. 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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