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Consomme De Laitue

A clear consommé made from lettuce, bacon, stock, cloves, onion, sugar, salt, and dried herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 486 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Consomme De Laitue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Pick and wash the lettuce.

  2. Dip the lettuce in boiling water for a few minutes.

  3. Cut the lettuce into quarters and tie it together.

Simmer

  1. Butter a stew pan and place the bacon slices at the bottom.

  2. Lay the lettuce on the bacon and cover with stock.

  3. Add cloves, onion, sugar, salt, and dried herbs.

  4. Simmer until the lettuce is done.

Finish

  1. Remove and drain the lettuce.

  2. Cut the lettuce into shreds when dry.

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. Lettuce + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Lettuce + sugartop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it simmers in the stock.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and smoky flavour to the stock as it cooks.
Stock
Provides the liquid that carries flavour and cooks the lettuce gently.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer until the lettuce is done. Simmering gently rather than boiling keeps the lettuce tender and the broth clear. A rolling boil can cloud the liquid and break the leaves apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, clove, sugar):

  1. Beetrootfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, clove, sugar. 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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