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Consomme of Fresh Vegetable Boots

A clear vegetable consommé made with carrots, onions, parsley, thyme, shallot, celery, butter, peas, lettuces, dried peas, and white haricots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Consomme of Fresh Vegetable Boots

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the stock

  1. Combine sliced carrots, onions, parsley, thyme, shallot, celery, and butter in a stewpan.

  2. Cook gently until the mixture turns red.

  3. Add water and bring to a boil, then skim off any foam.

  4. Stir in peas and lettuces.

  5. Add salt, whole pepper, nutmeg, cloves, dried peas, and white haricots.

Simmer and strain

  1. Simmer for 3 hours at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Skim off grease.

  3. Strain through a cloth.

  4. Set aside for 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Release sweetness and colour into the stock as they cook gently in butter.
Onions
Build savoury depth and sweetness as they soften and brown in the butter.
Butter
Carries the aromatic vegetables' flavour and gives the stock a rich mouthfeel.
Dried peas
Add body and a earthy thickness to the simmered liquid.
White haricots
Add body and a creamy texture to the simmered liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam and grease. Foam and fat rising during the long simmer can cloud the consommé and make it greasy. Removing them keeps the liquid clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, shallot, celery, butter):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, shallot, celery, butter. 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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