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Consomme a LA Sevigne

A clear consommé with chicken, eggs, milk, almond essence, seasoned with salt, cayenne, nutmeg, served with optional asparagus and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Sevigne

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Pound the chicken and pass it through a fine sieve.

  2. Mix the chicken with eggs, milk, salt, cayenne, nutmeg, and almond essence until well blended.

  3. Pour the mixture into 3 or 4 greased dariole moulds.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the moulds slowly for 20 minutes or until set.

  2. Carefully turn out the contents, cut into fancy shapes, and serve in the consommé.

  3. Optionally, add a few asparagus points and chervil leaves to the soup.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Chicken + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,389 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Coagulate when steamed, setting the chicken mixture into a firm, sliceable custard.
Cooked chicken
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the custard.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the custard tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Steam the moulds slowly for 20 minutes or until set. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; steaming too fast or too hot can make the custard bubble, weep, or turn rubbery and porous. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and firm enough to turn out.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, milk, nutmeg. 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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