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Vegetable Consomme

A clear vegetable consommé made with stock, vegetables, egg white, eggshell, and vegetable extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery 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 ↓

Vegetable Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

Make the consomme

  1. Combine all ingredients in a lined saucepan.

  2. Slowly bring to a boil while whisking.

  3. Remove the whisk and let it simmer gently for about 15 minutes.

  4. Strain carefully through a cloth without pressing to avoid cloudiness.

Serve

  1. Reheat, add garniture as desired, and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg white
Its proteins coagulate as it heats, trapping particles and clarifying the stock.
Vegetable stock
Forms the liquid base that the consomme is clarified from.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic flavour to the stock.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Strain without pressing. Pressing the cloth forces fine solids through the clarified layer, leaving the consomme cloudy. Letting it drip keeps the clear liquid clear.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, leek, egg. 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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