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Empotage, or Consomme for Soups in General

A clear consommé made from beef, veal, and rabbit, simmered with aromatics and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Empotage, or Consomme for Soups in General

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a large stockpot with butter.

  2. Add the gravy beef, knuckles of veal, and wild rabbits to the pot.

  3. Pour in enough common broth to nearly cover the meat.

Make the consommé

  1. Bring to a boil until the broth reduces to a light-colored glaze.

  2. Fill the pot with the remainder of the grand stock and boil, skimming as necessary.

  3. Garnish with carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, and celery.

  4. Add 2 blades of mace and 6 cloves.

  5. Season sparingly with salt and let simmer gently for 6 hours.

  6. Strain the broth into kitchen pans for further use.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beef + rabbittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy beef
Releases gelatin and meat flavour into the broth during long simmering.
Knuckles of veal
Their collagen breaks down into gelatin, giving the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Wild rabbits
Adds deep, gamey meat flavour to the stock.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiling stock. Fat and coagulated proteins rise to the surface as the stock boils. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy consommé.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, rabbit, butter, meat, turnip, leek):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, rabbit, butter, meat, turnip, leek. 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.

More consommé recipes

Chicken 21Veal 18Soup 15Vegetable 11Rice 8Custard 7 See all 50 →

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