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Consomme De Becassines

A clear consommé of roasted snipe, seasoned with parsley, thyme, pepper, and finished with red currant jelly and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 De Becassines

a dozen small quenelles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the snipe

  1. Roast the snipe until slightly cooked, then let them cool.

  2. Divide the snipe into convenient pieces and mash in a mortar, excluding the livers.

Make the consommé

  1. Add the mashed snipe to a pot of clear consommé and bring to a boil, skimming carefully.

  2. Simmer the mixture for several hours.

  3. Strain the liquid from the bones and let it cool.

Make the quenelles and finish

  1. Pick enough meat from the snipe remnants to form a dozen small quenelles.

  2. Pound the picked meat with the livers, salt, parsley, thyme, and pepper in a mortar.

  3. Stir in a small amount of red currant jelly and a few drops of port wine.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + red curranttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Red currant + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Snipe
Provides the main meat and flavour for the consommé and the quenelles.
Red currant jelly
Adds a touch of sweetness and fruity depth to the finished dish.
Port wine
Adds a small amount of aromatic, sweet-fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Skimming the consommé while it comes to a boil. Proteins and fats rising from the mashed meat form cloudy scum if not removed carefully. Skimming keeps the consommé clear and clean-tasting during the long simmer.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, thyme, pepper, port wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, thyme, pepper, port wine. 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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