Skip to main content
Drink

Consomme a LA Printaniere

A clear consommé made with veal or chicken stock, Bovril, and spring vegetables such as carrots, celery, chives or leeks, peas, and string beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Consomme a LA Printaniere

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Use the water from boiled veal or chicken.

  2. Add ½ teaspoon of Bovril for each quart of water.

  3. Increase Bovril if the water lacks a strong chicken flavor.

Prepare and serve

  1. Prepare a variety of vegetables: carrots, celery, chives or leeks, green peas, and string beans.

  2. Cook the vegetables until tender but not broken.

  3. Place the cooked vegetables in a tureen.

  4. Strain the stock over the vegetables.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Chive + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  4. Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

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

  5. Celery + beanstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Bovril
Adds concentrated savory meat flavor that deepens the stock's taste.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color, and hold their shape when cooked until tender.
Celery
Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable flavor and crisp-tender texture.
Green peas
Add sweetness and bright color to the clear soup.
String beans
Add crisp-tender texture and fresh green flavor.

The step that matters

Cook the vegetables until tender but not broken. Overcooking softens cell walls until vegetables fall apart and cloud the clear consommé. Stopping when they are just tender keeps them intact and the broth clear.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, celery, chive, beans):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, celery, chive, beans. 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.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes