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Empotage, or Consomme for Soups in General

A clear consommé made from beef, veal, rabbit, and vegetables, simmered for hours and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Empotage, or Consomme for Soups in General

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Spread butter in a large stockpot.

  2. Add gravy beef, knuckles of veal, and wild rabbits.

  3. Pour in enough common broth to nearly cover the meat.

  4. Boil until the broth reduces to a light-colored glaze.

Build the stock

  1. Fill the pot with the remainder of the grand stock and boil, skimming as needed.

  2. Garnish with carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, and celery.

  3. Add mace and cloves, being sparing with salt.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer gently for 6 hours.

  2. Strain into kitchen pans for further use.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Gravy beef
Releases meaty flavour and gelatin into the stock as it simmers.
Knuckles of veal
Rich in collagen, which breaks down to give the stock body.
Wild rabbits
Adds savoury, meaty depth to the stock.
Common broth
Serves as the liquid base that draws flavour from the meat as it reduces.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook down in the stock.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and colour to the finished stock.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 6 hours. A hard boil churns fat and proteins into the liquid, making it cloudy and greasy. Holding a gentle simmer lets the stock clarify and keeps the flavour clean, which is why skimming matters too.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, rabbit, butter, turnip, leek, onion):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotthe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, rabbit, butter, turnip, leek, onion. 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.

More consommé recipes

Chicken 21Veal 18Soup 15Vegetable 11Rice 8Custard 7 See all 50 →

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