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Jellied Consommé
Into each pint of hot canned bouillon, dissolve one chicken bouillon cube, a quarter of a teaspoonful of vegetable paste, a pinch of celery salt and two level teaspoonfuls of gelatin. Set in a cool place to chill. When serving break the jelly up and serve in bouillon cups.
A three-minute assembly job that depends entirely on getting the gelatin fully dissolved and the salt under control. Both are easy to get wrong as written.
- Bloom the gelatin firstSprinkling powdered gelatin straight into hot liquid gives you lumps with dry cores that never dissolve. Soften the 2 teaspoons in a few tablespoons of cold broth for five minutes, then stir it into the hot bouillon until no grains remain on the back of the spoon.
- The set is meant to be softThe set is meant to be broken -- Two teaspoons of gelatin to a pint is close to a full standard envelope (about 2 1/4 teaspoons), giving a tender jelly rather than a firm mould. Either way, the recipe wants it broken up with a fork and spooned into cups, not unmolded.
- Vegetable pasteMost likely a concentrated yeast or vegetable extract of the type sold in small jars. A quarter teaspoon is for colour and savoury depth; leaving it out simply makes a paler, blander jelly.
- SaltCanned bouillon, a bouillon cube, celery salt and vegetable extract are four salted ingredients stacked on each other. Start with a low-sodium broth, add the cube, and taste before the celery salt goes in. Chilled food also tastes less salty than warm, so judge it cold if you can.
- Canned bouillonThe modern equivalent is a good boxed beef or chicken broth, or homemade stock. A stock with real body will set partly on its own gelatin, so it may need slightly less added powder.
- Chilling"A cool place" meant an icebox or a cellar. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator, and preferably overnight; a half-set consomm tyle weeps in the cup.
- Yield and servingA pint fills two generous or three small bouillon cups. Serve very cold, broken up with a fork, with a lemon wedge or a spoonful of sour cream and chives if you want it to look like more than broth.
Jellied soups are often associated with a moment when cold savoury dishes signalled both modernity and hospitality on a hot evening, though how far domestic refrigeration drove the fashion is a matter of speculation. Consommé en gelée had long been a restaurant item, made by clarifying a stock rich enough in natural gelatin to set on its own; the domestic version substitutes canned bouillon, a cube and a packet of powdered gelatin, which is exactly the sort of shortcut that summer cookbooks of this period were built on. Powdered gelatin, sold in pre-measured envelopes, made moulded and jellied dishes a staple of American home entertaining for several decades before they fell out of fashion.