Vermicelli a la Reine

This is a garnished consommé finished with an egg-and-cream liaison rather than a vegetable dish, and the whole recipe turns on keeping that liaison below a simmer.

• The hinge: never let it boilOnce the yolks and cream go in, the soup must not exceed about 175F. Above that the yolks curdle into threads and the velvety body is gone for good. That is exactly what the instruction about the "corner of the stove" is warning against.
• Temper before combiningWhisk a ladleful of the hot consommé into the yolk-and-cream mixture first, then return it to the pot off the heat, or pour it into the warmed tureen and add the soup to it. The recipe itself only directs that the soup go into the tureen promptly so the thickening does not overcook.
• Quantities are not givenEight yolks implies a large pot, plausibly several quarts of consommé serving a dozen or more, though the recipe says nothing about volume. For 2 quarts, about 3 yolks with half a cup of cream and 3 to 4 ounces of vermicelli would be in scale.
• Vermicelli then and nowPeriod vermicelli was a fine solid strand, thinner than modern spaghetti and close to today's capellini or vermicelli coils sold for soup. It cooks in 2 to 4 minutes.
• Why blanch separatelyBoiling the pasta in salted water and draining it removes surface starch that would otherwise cloud a clarified consommé. Blanch until barely flexible, not tender; it finishes in the broth.
• "Rich consommé"A clarified, well-reduced stock with real body. Commercial boxed broth is too thin and too salty to carry a yolk liaison -- reduce it first. The recipe has the consommé already well seasoned before the vermicelli goes in.
• ServingSend it out immediately in a heated tureen. It cannot be held on the heat and does not reheat: the liaison breaks on a second warming.