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Olio Consommé

A clarified broth made from beef, veal, pork, mutton, poultry, hare, and aromatics, finished with Madeira or Malaga wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Olio Consommé

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Prepare stock by boiling beef, calves' feet, and knuckles of veal with large vegetables and salt in 10 quarts of broth until done.

  2. Drain the meat and pass the liquid through a sieve.

  3. Skim off the fat and let the liquid set.

Build the base

  1. Mince onions, leeks, carrots, celery, and parsley roots.

  2. Fry the minced vegetables in butter over low heat until nicely colored.

  3. Add the half-roasted pork, mutton, partridges, fowls, hare legs, and poultry bones, all cut into pieces.

  4. Add blanched raw ham, poultry giblets, aromatics, and whole spices.

  5. Fry the added ingredients for a few minutes.

  6. Moisten the mixture with the prepared stock.

  7. Skim the liquid.

Clarify and finish

  1. Transfer the consommé to a stewpan.

  2. Skim the fat from the consommé.

  3. Dilute the consommé with Madeira or Malaga wine.

  4. Let it clarify on low heat for an hour.

  5. Skim carefully.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Releases gelatin and meat flavour into the stock as it simmers.
Calves' feet
Their collagen adds body and a silky mouthfeel to the stock.
Butter
Carries the vegetables' flavour and helps them brown gently.
Madeira or malaga wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the finished consommé.
Partridges
Contribute a concentrated roasted game flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Clarifying the consommé on low heat. Boiling breaks the clarifying raft and leaves the liquid cloudy. Gentle heat lets the proteins bind suspended particles so they can be skimmed off, giving a clear result.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, leek, carrot, celery, parsley, butter):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, leek, carrot, celery, parsley, butter. 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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