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Soup

Dauphine Soup

A French soup made with a paste of eggs, consommé, and herbs, formed into pea‑shaped dumplings and simmered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Dauphine Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 cups of strong chicken consommé with 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks until smooth.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of chopped blanched parsley.

  3. Prepare two funnel‑shaped papers with a ¼ inch hole at the tip.

  4. Fill each funnel with the paste and close the large end tightly.

Form and cook the peas

  1. Force the paste out onto a buttered stewpan lid in the shape of large peas.

  2. Heat the remaining 3 quarts of strong consommé in a stewpan.

  3. Shake the lid to drop the paste peas into the boiling consommé.

  4. Let them boil gently for 5 minutes, then strain them.

  5. Return the peas to the consommé and boil gently for another 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Add a sprig of tarragon and chervil before serving.

  2. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Chicken + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,846 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + tarragontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together619 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the paste so it holds its pea shape while boiling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the paste hold together smoothly.
Chicken consommé
Provides the broth base and the liquid that the paste is mixed into.

The step that matters

Forcing the paste into peas. The paste must be smooth and firm enough to hold its shape. If it is too thin, the peas will spread and break apart in the boiling consommé, so the shapes lose their definition.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, tarragon, chervil, parmesan cheese):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Basilfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, tarragon, chervil, parmesan cheese. 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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