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Consomme Solferino

A clear consommé enriched with meat extract, served with quenelles of farina and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Consomme Solferino

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Boil the strained broth to clarify it, adding cloves and allspice for flavor.

  2. Add extract of meat or browned chicken to enrich the broth.

Make the quenelles

  1. In a separate pot, boil farina in milk to make a stiff porridge.

  2. Season the porridge with salt and nutmeg.

  3. Mix in the egg yolks.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Roll the mixture into cherry-sized balls.

  6. Boil the balls in water for a few minutes.

  7. Drain the balls.

  8. Place half a dozen quenelles in each serving plate.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Farina
Thickens the milk into a stiff porridge that holds its shape when rolled and boiled.
Egg yolks
Bind the cooled porridge so the quenelles hold together.
Broth
Forms the clear base of the soup, which is clarified by boiling.
Milk
Cooks with the farina to give the porridge a soft, creamy body.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before rolling. The porridge must be cool and firm enough to shape; rolling it hot would make it sticky and fragile, and the egg yolks could scramble if it is still very hot.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, milk, nutmeg, egg, meat):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, milk, nutmeg, egg, meat. 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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