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Consommé À LA Royale

A consommé thickened with egg yolks and cream, served chilled in sliced portions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Consommé À LA Royale

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the well-beaten egg yolks with the heavy cream, adding salt and pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture into a small tin or earthen dish (2 inches deep) with straight sides.

  3. Place this dish in a larger dish with boiling water and bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm, without bubbling or browning.

  4. Remove from the oven and let it cool completely.

Cut and serve

  1. Cut into ½-inch slices and shape with a vegetable cutter.

  2. Lay the shapes in a tureen and gently pour the hot Consommé over them.

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. Pepper + creamtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Pepper and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Egg yolks
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure when gently baked.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the custard a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Baking the custard gently in a water bath. Egg yolks set into a smooth, firm custard only at moderate heat. High heat or direct contact causes bubbling and curdling, leaving a grainy texture and browned surface that spoils the clean slices.

“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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