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Consomme a I’Imperiale

A consommé made with forcemeat of chicken, bacon or suet, eggs, cream, and stock, served with carrots and asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,148 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Consomme a I’Imperiale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Prepare the consommé in the usual way.

  2. Butter a small flat tin mold or pan.

  3. Spread a thick layer of forcemeat made from finely chopped chicken meat, bacon or suet, and pound together in a mortar.

  4. Gradually add the eggs and sauce, then pass through a wire sieve.

  5. Return to the mortar, add cream and enough stock to make a creamy mixture, and season with pepper and salt.

Bake the custard

  1. Place the mold in the oven until done, which will take a few minutes.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cut out thin rounds the size of a shilling, and place in a soup-tureen with small rounds of cooked carrots and asparagus points.

  2. Pour the consommé over the vegetables and serve.

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. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together571 recipes

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 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

Chicken meat
Forms the main body of the forcemeat, giving it structure and a firm, sliceable texture.
Egg whites
Set when heated, binding the forcemeat so it holds its shape in the mold.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture, giving a smoother, more tender set.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the mixture creamy rather than dry.
Bacon or beef suet
Adds fat that moistens the forcemeat and carries savory flavor.

The step that matters

Baking the forcemeat in the mold. Heat must be gentle. Egg proteins set as they warm, and high heat tightens them too far, squeezing out liquid and leaving the forcemeat rubbery, curdled, or pitted instead of smooth and delicate.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, cream, sauce, beef, pepper, asparagus):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, cream, sauce, beef, pepper, asparagus. 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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