Skip to main content
Main

Consomme Dore

A clear chicken consommé made with bone, ham, vegetables, and clarified with egg whites and shells.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Consomme Dore

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Place the chicken, soup bone, and ham in a pot with cold water and boil slowly for 5 hours, covered.

  2. Fry the onion in a little butter or drippings.

  3. Add the fried onion along with all the vegetables and seasonings to the pot.

  4. Boil for an additional 2 hours.

  5. Strain the mixture into an earthen bowl and let it sit overnight.

Clarify

  1. Remove the fat from the top.

  2. Take out the jelly, leaving the thickest part of the sediment.

  3. Mix in the egg whites and shells.

  4. Boil quickly for 10 minutes.

  5. Let the kettle sit for 10 minutes to settle.

  6. Pour the soup through a jelly bag without squeezing it.

  7. If the soup is not clear, pass it through again until it is clear.

  8. Use the cleanest kettle.

  9. Scald your sieve each time to avoid particles washing back into the soup.

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 + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Parsley + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites and shells collect cloudy particles as they set, clarifying the broth.
Soup bone
Releases gelatin and flavor during long simmering, giving the broth body.
Chicken
Contributes meaty flavor and gelatin to the stock during slow simmering.
Onion
Fried first to build a deeper, sweeter aroma in the stock.

The step that matters

Clarifying with egg whites. Boiling too hard or stirring after the whites set can break up the raft and leave the soup cloudy. Letting it settle undisturbed lets particles cling to the raft, so it strains clear.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, ham, onion, parsley, carrot, parsnip, celery):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, ham, onion, parsley, carrot, parsnip, celery. 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

Chicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipes