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Consomme Printanier

A clear spring consommé with carrot, turnip, peas, French beans, asparagus, sorrel, lettuce, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorrel and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 247 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Consomme Printanier

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 1 quart of consommé.

  2. Cut the carrot and turnip into ½‑inch thick roundels.

  3. Use a tubular cutter to cut these roundels into small rods, enough to fill 1 tablespoon of each vegetable.

  4. Cook the vegetable rods in the consommé.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a soup tureen, combine the carrot and turnip rods with 1 tablespoon of small peas, the same amount of small French beans, and asparagus heads.

  2. Add 10 roundels of sorrel leaves and the same amount of lettuce leaves, poached in consommé.

  3. Just before serving, pour boiling consommé over the garnishes and add a large pinch of small chervil plumes.

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. Sorrel + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lettuce + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together396 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Sorrel + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + sorreltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 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

Consommé
Forms the clear broth that carries the garnishes and gives the soup its body.
Carrot
Adds firm texture and a little sweetness when cooked in the consommé.
Turnip
Adds firm texture and mild sweetness when cooked in the consommé.

The step that matters

Poaching the vegetable rods in the consommé. Cooking the carrot and turnip rods until just tender, without overcooking, keeps their shape and texture. Boiling the consommé too hard can cloud it, so it should be kept at a gentle simmer.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, beans, asparagus, sorrel, lettuce, chervil):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, beans, asparagus, sorrel, lettuce, chervil. 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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