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Consomme Creole

A clear consommé made with calf’s feet, crab, herbs, and clarified with beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Consomme Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Prepare a stock using the calf’s feet instead of fowl giblets.

  2. Once drained and cooled, remove the fat from the stock.

Make the consommé

  1. Chop the crab shell and crush it with the butter in a mortar.

  2. Fry the crab debris in a stewpan for five minutes over moderate heat.

  3. Cover the fried debris with the stock and add the bouquet and peppercorns.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 45 minutes.

  5. Strain and skim the soup, clarifying it with beef as needed.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with shredded white crab meat and offer lemon quarters on the side.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Basil + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Basil + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  4. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf’s feet
Provides gelatin, giving the stock body and a silky mouthfeel.
Crab
Its shell, fried and simmered, gives the consommé its rich crab flavour.
Butter
Carries fat-soluble flavour from the crushed crab shell into the cooking stage.
Sweet basil, marjoram and thyme
Herbal bouquet adding aromatic, savoury notes to the stock.

The step that matters

Clarifying the soup with beef. Proteins in the beef bind to cloudy particles and rise with them as they coagulate, so the broth clears. Skimming and straining afterwards remove the residue, leaving a clear consommé.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, butter, marjoram, thyme, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, butter, marjoram, thyme, lemon. 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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