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Consomme with Rice and Cream
Remove the fat from half a gallon of consomme, put in a stewpan and when at the point of boiling add four tablespoonfuls of ground rice, previously moistened with a little stock. Boil for ten minutes, and add one teaspoonful each of sugar and salt, boil again and when the rice is quite done, pour in half a pint of boiling cream.
A thickened clear soup of the sort French kitchens called a crème built on consommé rather than milk. The proportions are generous and the technique is unforgiving in only one place.
- Quantities in modern termsHalf a gallon of consommé is 8 cups (about 1.9 L); half a pint of cream is 1 cup. Four tablespoons of ground rice into 8 cups of stock gives a lightly bodied soup, not a porridge.
- Ground rice is not rice flour's coarser cousin by accidentGround rice is rice milled to a gritty semolina-like texture, sold in British baking aisles. Rice flour will work but disperses faster and thickens sooner; cream of rice cereal is the closest US supermarket equivalent.
- The slurry step is the hingeMoistening the ground rice with a little stock before it goes in is what keeps it from seizing into lumps the instant it meets hot liquid. The recipe adds it "at the point of boiling," so whisk it in just below a boil rather than into a rolling one.
- "Boil for ten minutes" is a minimumGround rice needs 15-20 minutes at a bare simmer to lose its raw, chalky edge, which is why Oscar says "boil again... when the rice is quite done." Taste rather than watch the clock; grittiness on the tongue means it is not ready.
- Heat the cream first, and separatelyAdding boiling cream keeps the soup at serving temperature and avoids shocking it. Once the cream is in, do not return the pot to a boil -- it will thin the body and can break the cream.
- Stir oftenStarch settles and scorches on the bottom of a stewpan. A heavy-bottomed pan and a wooden spoon across the base every couple of minutes is the whole difficulty of the dish.
- Season last, and lightlyA teaspoon of salt is aimed at unsalted house consommé. Commercial stock is already salted; hold the salt until the cream is in and the volume has settled. The teaspoon of sugar is not a mistake -- it rounds the consommé, and you should not taste it as sweetness.
- YieldAbout 9 cups finished, serving eight to ten as a first course in small cups. Strain through a fine sieve for a smoother texture if the rice has gone uneven.
Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896 while he was maître d'hôtel at the Waldorf, catalogues the repertoire an American luxury hotel was expected to produce on demand, and its soup chapter draws heavily on the French classical list. Soups of this type -- a clear consommé bound with a starch and finished with cream -- sat awkwardly between the two great categories of nineteenth-century service, the clear soups and the purées, and cookbooks of the period file them variously as crèmes or as "thickened consommés." Ground rice was one of the thickeners used for these, giving body without the flour taste of a roux and without the gloss of arrowroot.