Name: Consomme
Ingredients: 4 pounds beef; 1 ounce suet; 1 small onion, sliced; 3 quarts water; 4 cloves; 1 small carrot; 1 piece of celery; 1 egg white

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

In a soup kettle, cook the suet and sliced onion until brown.
Add the beef and cook for 30 minutes.
Pour in the cold water, cover, and simmer for 3 hours.
Add the cloves and carrot, then simmer for 1 hour longer.
Strain the mixture and let it cool.

Clarify and serve

Once cool, remove all grease from the surface.
Return the consommé to the kettle.
Beat the egg white with ½ cup cold water and add it to the boiling consommé.
Boil for 1 minute, then strain through cheesecloth, season, and serve.

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.

Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Clove + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,668 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Provides the main meaty flavor and gelatin that gives the finished broth body.
Egg white: Binds fine particles as it cooks, collecting them so the broth comes out clear.
Suet: Adds richness and fat that carries flavor through the long simmer.
Onion: Adds savory, sweet aromatic depth to the broth as it browns.

The step that matters

Adding the egg white to the boiling consommé. The egg white must be whisked into cold water first and added to the broth, then boiled briefly. As it heats, it coagulates and traps cloudy particles, which are then strained out. Boiling too hard or stirring vigorously can break up the raft and leave the consommé cloudy.