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Dauphine Soup

A French soup made with egg yolk paste, parsley, and consommé, finished with tarragon, chervil, and grated Parmesan.

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

Prepare the paste

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs and yolks into a firm paste. Stir in the chopped parsley.

  2. Prepare two funnel-shaped papers with a ¼ inch hole at the tip. Fill the papers with the paste. Close the large end of the papers.

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

Cook the peas

  1. Prepare boiling consommé in a stewpan. Shake the peas into the boiling consommé. Let them boil gently for 5 minutes.

  2. Strain the peas. Add them to 3 quarts of strong consommé. Allow to boil gently for another 5 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add tarragon and chervil. Boil briefly before serving.

  2. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

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. Egg + parmesan cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the paste and set into firm, tender pea-shaped dumplings when cooked.
Egg yolks
Add richness and moisture, making the paste smoother and more tender.
Consommé
Provides the clear, savoury broth that the pea-shaped dumplings are cooked in.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury flavour when sprinkled over the finished soup.

The step that matters

Forcing the paste into peas. The paste must be firm enough to hold its shape when forced through the paper cone. If it is too soft, the peas spread and lose their form in the simmering consommé.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Basilfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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