Name: Consomme, or Clear Soup
Ingredients: 2 quarts of first stock; ½ lb. gravy beef; 1 egg white and shell; 2 tablespoons cold water; small piece of each kind of vegetable used in making the stock, except turnip

Why it works: Beef and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,940 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

Consomme, or Clear Soup

Ingredients

2 quarts of first stock
½ lb. gravy beef
1 egg white and shell
2 tablespoons cold water
small piece of each kind of vegetable used in making the stock, except turnip

Directions

Prepare the stock

Remove all fat from the stock.
If the stock is gelatinous, scrape off as much as possible with a spoon and wash the top with a cloth dipped in hot water.
Finely scrape the beef and soak it in cold water to draw out the juices.

Clarify

Put the stock in a stew pan and add the beef, egg white and shell, and the small pieces of vegetables.
Whisk over heat until the stock begins to simmer, then stop stirring and let it boil well.
Remove from heat and let it sit for a crust to form.

Strain

Tie a clean cloth to a soup strainer or the legs of an upside-down chair.
Pour boiling water through it to clean.
Place a clean basin underneath and pour the contents of the stew pan onto the cloth.
The first strain will be cloudy; discard it and pour the soup slowly through a second time for a clear result.

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.

Beef + turniptop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,940 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + turniptop 36% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,077 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Stock: Forms the liquid base that the clarified consommé is made from.
Gravy beef: Its juices and proteins bind with the stock's particles to help clarify it.
Egg white and shell: Coagulates as it heats, trapping impurities and clearing the broth.
Cold water: Draws out the beef's juices before it is added to the stock.

The step that matters

Stop stirring once the stock begins to simmer. Stirring after the simmer begins breaks up the egg white raft that traps cloudy particles, so the consommé stays cloudy instead of clear.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg):

Asparagusfits better
Chivefits better
Potatofits better
Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg. 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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Consomme, or Clear Soup