Skip to main content
Main

Consomme a LA Roy Ale

A consommé served with a firm egg yolk custard cut into shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and pepper 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 ↓

Consomme a LA Roy Ale

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 slightly more than ½ cup of cream or rich milk.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Pour the mixture into a small tin or earthen dish that is 1 to 2 inches deep.

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

  5. Remove from the oven as soon as it becomes firm and let it cool completely.

Serve

  1. Cut into ½-inch slices and then into fancy shapes with a vegetable cutter.

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

  3. Allow 2 cups of consommé for each person.

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. Cream + peppertop 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).

Cream and pepper 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 body when gently heated.
Cream or rich milk
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Consommé
Provides the clear, savoury broth that surrounds the custard shapes.

The step that matters

Bake gently until just firm. Egg proteins set at moderate heat; too much heat makes the custard bubble, form holes, or brown, and it becomes rubbery and grainy instead of smooth and sliceable.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes