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Consomme a LA Creole

A clear consommé made with calf's feet, crab, fish cuttings, vegetables, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

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

  2. Let the stock cool.

  3. Remove the fat from the stock.

Make the soup

  1. Chop the crab legs. Keep the crab body and claws intact.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the crab, stock, bouquet of herbs, and peppercorns.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Simmer for 45 minutes.

  5. Strain the soup.

  6. Clarify the soup with beef as needed.

  7. Stir in ½ cup of French white wine or hock.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with shredded white crab meat.

  2. 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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together367 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

Calf's feet
Release gelatin and body into the stock, giving the consommé a rich mouthfeel.
Crab
Adds its distinctive flavour and sweet meat to the stock as it simmers.
Fish cuttings
Contribute savoury, marine flavour to the stock.
French white wine or hock
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Remove the fat from the stock. Fat left in the cooled stock would stay as droplets and cloud the soup, spoiling the clear, brilliant appearance a consommé needs.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, fish, carrot, turnip, salmon, parsley, marjoram):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, fish, carrot, turnip, salmon, parsley, marjoram. 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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