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Rich Pale Veal Gravy, Or, Consommee

A clear veal consommé made by simmering veal, ham, and aromatics for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Rich Pale Veal Gravy, Or, Consommee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a saucepan, arrange the ham and veal, then pour in the broth or water.

Make the consommé

  1. Add salt after boiling starts, along with onion, herbs, celery, carrot, mace, and peppercorns.

  2. Stew gently for 4 hours until the meat is in fragments.

  3. For added flavor, include mushroom buttons and bones if desired.

Strain and cool

  1. Strain the gravy and let it cool to remove fat.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal neck
Breaks down during long stewing, releasing gelatin and meat flavour into the liquid.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty depth to the broth as it simmers.
Beef or veal broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the meat and aromatics.
Onion
Contributes sweetness and savoury aroma to the stock as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 hours. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the broth clear, since vigorous boiling breaks fat and proteins into it and makes it cloudy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, veal, beef, onion, celery, carrot, mushroom):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, veal, beef, onion, celery, carrot, mushroom. 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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