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Consomme Dore

A clear consommé made with chicken, bone, ham, vegetables, and clarified with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Consomme Dore

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine chicken, soup bone, ham, and cold water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Simmer for 5 hours, covered.

  4. Fry the onion in a little butter or drippings in a skillet.

  5. Add the onion, parsnip, carrot, celery, parsley, cloves, salt, and pepper to the pot.

  6. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

  7. Strain the mixture into an earthen bowl.

  8. Let it cool overnight.

Clarify and serve

  1. The next day, remove the fat from the top.

  2. Take out the jelly, leaving the thickest part of the sediment.

  3. Mix in the egg whites and shells.

  4. Boil quickly for 10 minutes.

  5. Let it settle for another 10 minutes.

  6. Pour the soup through a jelly bag without squeezing it.

  7. If the soup is not clear, strain it again until it is.

  8. Use a clean kettle and scald your sieve each time to ensure clarity.

  9. Serve garnished to taste.

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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and shells bind to cloudy particles and float them out, clearing the broth.
Soup bone
Releases gelatin and savory flavor into the water during the long simmer.
Chicken
Adds body and rich flavor to the stock as it simmers.
Ham
Contributes salty, savory depth to the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it cooks into the stock.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites and shells. The egg mixture must be stirred in before a quick boil so the whites coagulate and trap cloudy particles. Boiling too long or stirring vigorously breaks the raft apart, leaving the soup cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, parsley, parsnip, clove, pepper, chicken, carrot):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, parsley, parsnip, clove, pepper, chicken, carrot. 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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