Consommé
Ingredients.
Two quarts of Stock.
Half a Carrot. Half a Turnip. Half an Onion. A bunch of Pot Herbs. Half a pound of lean Beef. Mace. Two Cloves.
The White and Shell of one Egg.
This is an ingredient list for clarifying stock rather than a full method — the book assumes the cook already knows how a raft works. The proportions are sound, and the technique behind them is worth spelling out.
- The hinge: never let it boilOnce the beef and egg white are whisked into cold stock, bring it up slowly and let it come only to a bare tremble, around 190F. A rolling boil breaks the coagulated raft apart and drives the sediment back into the liquid, and no amount of straining will recover the clarity.
- Quantities in modern termsHalf a pound of lean beef is about 225g. Two quarts is about 1.9 litres by American measure, or about 2.3 litres if the imperial quart is meant. The finished quantity will be somewhat less than the starting volume, since the raft absorbs liquid and the murky dregs are left behind.
- What the beef is forLean shin or leg, finely minced or chopped, does two jobs: its albumin helps set the raft, and it restores flavour lost to the clarification. Trim every scrap of fat, since fat is what makes a consommé cloudy and greasy on the surface.
- The eggshellThe shell is crushed and added with the white. It is usually said to give the raft something to cling to rather than to act chemically, though its actual contribution is debated. Rinse the shell first; raw shell can carry surface bacteria, though the mixture is held near simmering for a long stretch.
- Start cold, finish stillWhisk the egg white, shell and minced beef into stock that is cold or barely warm, then stop whisking the moment the raft begins to knit together and rise. Poking it after that point is the commonest way to ruin the batch. Let it hold at a bare simmer for 45 minutes to an hour.
- Strain properlyLadle rather than pour, through a colander lined with a scalded, wrung-out muslin or a double thickness of cheesecloth. Do not press the raft. Any fat surviving on the surface can be lifted with a strip of paper towel.
- Season afterwardsThe list gives no salt. Long slow simmering concentrates the stock, so season at the end or you will overshoot. If the stock is already well salted, reduce nothing further.
- Stock quality decides everythingClarification removes cloudiness, not flavour faults. A weak or unroasted stock will give you a pale, thin consomme; a stock made from roasted bones and browned vegetables gives the deeper amber colour wanted in a brown consomme.
Consomme comes from the French past participle meaning "completed" or "brought to perfection" -- stock taken as far as it can go, first in flavour and then in transparency. Its prominence in late nineteenth-century English cookery books reflects the dominance of French professional practice in country-house and hotel kitchens, where a clear soup opened dinner and clarity was taken as a mark of the cook's skill. That an ingredient list this short could stand alone suggests the intended reader of a volume called High Class Cookery Recipes was someone trained, who needed the proportions rather than the procedure. Clarifying with egg white and shell appears in English recipe books well before the period of this book, though its relation to French codification is not settled.