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Soup

Consommé De Poisson

A clear crab consommé made by simmering crab meat and shells with dried basil, Madeira, and lime.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 505 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Consommé De Poisson

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crab

  1. Boil the crab, then drain and clean it.

  2. Pick out the flesh, saving the claw meat for garnishing.

  3. Pound the remaining meat and shells in a mortar.

Make the consommé

  1. Add the pounded mixture to the consommé with the dried basil in a bag.

  2. Boil gently for 30 minutes, then strain through a fine sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Reheat the strained soup and pour it into a soup tureen over the claw meat quenelles.

  2. Finish with Madeira and lime juice.

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. Basil + limetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together505 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Crab + meattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Basil + white peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together132 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lime + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together70 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Crab + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Crab
Provides the main flavour and body of the consommé, from meat and shells.
Dried basil
Adds a herbal aroma to the broth as it simmers.
Madeira
Adds a rich, sweet-toned depth at the end of cooking.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 30 minutes, then strain through a fine sieve. A vigorous boil makes the broth cloudy and can break up the solids, so gentle simmering keeps the consommé clear. A fine sieve then removes remaining particles for a clear result.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (crab, basil, lime, meat):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against crab, basil, lime, 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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