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Consomme a LA Madrid

A clear consommé made from equal parts chicken and beef stock, tomatoes, and chervil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 LA Madrid

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Clarify equal quantities of chicken and beef stock.

  2. Add 4 sliced tomatoes to the stock.

Simmer and strain

  1. Boil gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve with sprigs of chervil.

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. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Tomato + cherviltop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + cherviltop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together120 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken stock
Provides the main savory body and depth of the consommé.
Beef stock
Adds richer, meatier flavor and depth to the clear broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, fresh flavor and a warm red tint to the broth.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 20 minutes. Vigorous boiling churns the broth and breaks up the clarifying raft, leaving it cloudy. A gentle simmer keeps the consommé clear while the tomato flavor develops.

Swap the chervil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, beef, tomato):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Chervilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, beef, tomato. 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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