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Consomme Royal

A fish consommé thickened with butter, flour, egg yolks, and cream, served with custard shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Consomme Royal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the stock as usual for consommé.

Assemble

  1. Cut the custard into fancy shapes and place it in a tureen.

  2. Pour the hot soup over the custard.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the soup.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and mix with the cream or milk.

  4. Add the egg yolk mixture to the soup.

  5. Cook until the soup thickens slightly.

  6. Season to taste.

  7. Serve immediately.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Salmon + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Salmon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when rubbed with butter and stirred in.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel, and helps the flour blend into the soup.
Egg yolks
Set gently with heat to give the soup body and a custard-like richness.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and softness, mellowing the egg yolk mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture to the soup. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, so they can curdle or turn grainy if the soup is too hot or boiling. Stirring well and cooking gently only until the soup thickens slightly keeps it smooth.

“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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