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Consomme Royale

A consommé topped with a firm egg and milk custard layer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Consomme Royale

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs with the milk and salt.

  2. Butter a small basin and pour in the egg mixture.

  3. Place the basin in a large basin of boiling water.

  4. Bake until the batter is firm.

Serve

  1. Cut into knife-shaped pieces and place them at the bottom of a tureen.

  2. Pour over the boiling consomme and serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Their proteins set on heating, giving the custard its firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, so the set custard stays tender rather than tough.

The step that matters

Bake until the batter is firm. Egg proteins set gently as they warm. Too much heat makes the custard grainy, rubbery and watery, so it should be removed once just firm.

“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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