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Consommé À LA Monaco

A clear chicken consommé with quenelles of white meat flavored with truffles, herbs, mushrooms, and carmine, finished with Madeira or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Consommé À LA Monaco

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Put the stock into a clean pan.

  2. Add the crushed chicken bones and boil for 2 to 3 hours, adding cold stock as needed.

Clarify

  1. Strain the stock and set aside until cold, then clarify using half chicken and half beef.

Make and poach the quenelles

  1. Make quenelles with the white meat, dividing the mixture into three parts.

  2. Add chopped truffles to one part.

  3. Add chopped parsley, tarragon, and chervil to another part.

  4. Add chopped mushrooms and carmine to the third part.

  5. Make small quenelles and poach them.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the quenelles to the soup just before serving, along with the Madeira or sherry.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  5. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stock
Forms the liquid base of the consommé and carries most of its flavour.
Chicken bones
Release flavour and gelatin into the stock during long simmering.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma to one batch of quenelles.
Chopped button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to one batch of quenelles.
Carmine
Adds red colour to one batch of quenelles.
Madeira or sherry
Adds sweetness and aroma to the soup just before serving.

The step that matters

Clarify the cold stock. Egg white and meat trap cloudy particles as they slowly rise, leaving the stock clear. Boiling vigorously or stirring too early breaks up this raft and leaves the consommé cloudy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, truffle, tarragon, chervil, mushroom, sherry):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, truffle, tarragon, chervil, mushroom, sherry. 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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