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To Clarify Stock (Which process is now often)
224. To Clarify Stock, which process is now often wanted, as it is the fashion to use it clear in mock-turtle and many other soups, which were formerly thickened, the following method must be adopted :- Put the stock over a good fire, and when boiling add the white of one egg to each quart of stock, proceeding as follows:-Beat the eggs up in a little water, then add a little hot stock, beat to a froth, and pour gradually into the pot, when the whole is to be whisked. Boil up, and immediately remove and strain through a fine sieve or cloth.
This is the classic egg-white raft, and it still works exactly as described. The hinge is that once the froth has been stirred in and the pot comes back to the boil, all agitation must stop — whisking a set raft breaks it into cloudy shreds and you lose everything you were trying to gain.
- The proportionOne egg white per quart of stock (an imperial quart, about 1.14 litres, in an English book of this date). The instruction slips into the plural ("beat the eggs up"); scale the whites to the volume, not to the wording.
- Degrease and cool firstFat left in suspension will not be caught by the raft and will leave the finished consommé greasy and dull. Chill, lift the fat, then clarify.
- Temper the whitesBeating the whites with a little water and then a little hot stock, as directed, is tempering — it stops the albumen seizing into lumps the moment it meets the pot. Pour it in gradually while the stock is moving.
- Then leave it aloneBring to a bare boil, at which point the coagulating albumen rises and carries the fine particles with it. The recipe says remove immediately; a gentle simmer of five to ten minutes gives a firmer raft and a brighter result, but do not stir once it has begun to form.
- StrainingA fine sieve alone will not give a genuinely brilliant liquid. Line it with a doubled square of muslin or a coffee filter, wet the cloth first, and let the stock fall through under its own weight rather than pressing it.
- Cold stock, cold startThe instruction to add the whites to boiling stock is the weak point of the method. Modern practice adds the tempered whites to cool or barely warm stock and brings the whole up slowly, which gives the albumen time to gather the sediment before it sets. Both produce clear stock; the slow start produces clearer.
- YieldExpect to lose some volume to the raft and the cloth. Clarify a little more than the finished dish requires.