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Consomme De Volaille

A clear fowl broth made by simmering chicken, celery, onion, carrot, turnip, salt, and pepper in cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Consomme De Volaille

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the fowl and cold water.

  2. Add the celery, onion, carrot, turnip, salt, and pepper.

  3. Simmer gently until the scum rises, then skim it off.

  4. Boil gently for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim off all fat and serve.

  2. For better flavor, let it sit overnight to remove more grease.

  3. Serve with slices of toast for invalids.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Old fowl
Provides the main meat flavor and gelatin that gives the broth body.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the scum rises, then skim it off.. Boiling hard breaks up the coagulated proteins and fat, clouding the broth. Gentle simmering lets scum rise cleanly so it can be skimmed away, keeping the consommé clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, pepper, turnip):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, pepper, turnip. 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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