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Dessert

Consomme a LA Royale

A clear consommé made with egg yolks, colored with cochineal or spinach greening, set in buttered moulds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Royale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custards

  1. Mix the yolks of four eggs with a little water and a pinch of salt.

  2. Strain the mixture and divide it into three equal portions.

  3. Color one portion with cochineal, one with spinach greening, and leave the third plain.

Steam and finish

  1. Pour each mixture into three buttered moulds and dip them into a pan of hot water.

  2. Steam just long enough to set the custards.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool before turning out onto a napkin.

  4. Cut into dice or pretty shapes with a vegetable cutter.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Egg + spinachtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,323 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Spinach + buttertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,583 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Set into a firm, smooth custard when gently heated, giving the royale its structure.
Water
Thins the yolks so the custard sets soft and smooth rather than dense.

The step that matters

Steam just long enough to set the custards. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, and too much heat or time makes the custard curdle, weep and turn spongy or grainy. Stop as soon as it is set.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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