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Consomme De Volaille

A clear consommé made from roasted fowl, veal, ham, and vegetables, clarified with raw meat and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Consomme De Volaille

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Remove skin and browned parts from the fowl remains and cut into small pieces.

  2. Place the fowl, veal, and ham in a saucepan and cover with plain white stock.

  3. Add salt to taste and heat, skimming any scum that rises.

Simmer

  1. Before boiling, add carrots, onions, celery, thyme, parsley, marjoram, bay leaf, cloves, mace, and whole pepper.

  2. Simmer the mixture for about four hours without boiling.

Strain and clarify

  1. Strain the liquid through a napkin, remove fat, and clarify with raw meat and egg white.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Fowl remains
Bones and meat provide the main body and savoury flavour of the broth.
Veal knuckle
Bones and connective tissue add body and gelatin for a fuller mouthfeel.
Lean ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the broth.
Egg white
Traps fine particles as it cooks, helping clarify the consommé to a clear liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. A rolling boil breaks the liquid up and emulsifies fat and particles into it, leaving the broth cloudy. A gentle simmer keeps it clear and lets flavour extract slowly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, celery, thyme, parsley, marjoram):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, celery, thyme, parsley, marjoram. 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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