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Fish Consomme
Put into a two gallon stewpan three quarters of a pound of butter, four sliced onions, three heads of celery cut up small, five carrots cut in slices, four unpicked shallots, two bay leaves, one sprig of thyme, three cloves, one clove of unpicked garlic and twelve sprigs of parsley, and fry to a reddish brown color. When they are well done, pour in five quarts of water and one bottle Chablis or Sauterne. Put the stewpan on the fire and boil, skim and add a little mignonette pepper, an ounce and a half of salt, six pounds of any kind of fish cut in pieces, and the heads and bones of six large whiting, cod or eels, but keeping their fillets to clarify. Place the pan on the side of the fire, simmer for two hours, then strain the contents through a napkin. Pound the fillets with the whites of two eggs, stir them in the liquor, replace the pan on the fire, and boil for a few minutes longer. After straining again it is ready to serve.
A hotel-scale fish consommé, built like a classic fumet and then clarified with a raft of pounded fish and egg white. Two things need adjusting for a modern kitchen: the volume, and the two-hour simmer.
- Cut it downAs written this starts with nearly six quarts of liquid and yields several quarts of finished consommé, enough for twenty or more servings. Quartering everything gives about 1 1/4 quarts and fits a 6-quart pot: 3 oz butter, 1 onion, 1 head celery, 1 large carrot, 1 shallot, half a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme, 3 sprigs parsley, 1 clove, 1 garlic clove, 1 1/4 quarts water, a scant cup white wine, 1 1/2 lb fish and bones.
- The simmer is too longTwo hours suited a stock pot kept at the side of a coal range, barely moving. Fish frames give up their flavour in 20 to 40 minutes; beyond that the bones yield glue and bitterness and the broth turns cloudy and faintly muddy. Take the aromatics and bones out at 30 to 40 minutes, then reduce if you want it stronger.
- "Unpicked" shallots and garlicLeft whole in their skins, not peeled. The papery skins add colour to the initial fry and are strained out anyway.
- Mignonette pepperCoarsely cracked peppercorns, traditionally white or a white-and-black mix, not ground pepper. Here it goes in after the first boil and skimming, before the long simmer; since prolonged boiling makes cracked pepper harsh, adding it later is preferable.
- SaltAn ounce and a half is about 2 1/2 tablespoons of fine salt for five quarts. Scaled to a quarter batch that is a scant 2 teaspoons, and it is worth holding some back if you intend to reduce the finished broth.
- Whiting, cod or eelsAny lean white fish frames work: cod, haddock, hake, snapper, sole, halibut. Avoid salmon, mackerel, bluefish and other oily fish, which make stock that tastes rancid on standing. Rinse the bones and remove gills and any blood along the spine, the main source of bitterness and cloudiness.
- The clarificationThe reserved raw fillets, pounded to a paste with egg white, are the clearing agent. Stir them into the cold or barely warm strained liquid, then bring it up slowly, stirring until it steams; once the raft forms and rises, stop stirring and hold at a bare tremble. A hard boil breaks the raft and you will never get it clear again.
- Straining through a napkinA doubled layer of damp muslin or a coffee filter set in a fine sieve. Ladle, do not pour, and let it drip rather than pressing, or the sediment goes through with it.
- WineA standard bottle today is 750 ml. Chablis is the safer of the two suggestions; the sweet Sauternes of Bordeaux would push the finished consommé toward a sugary edge, though 'Sauterne' in period American usage often meant simply a dry white.
Oscar Tschirky was never a cook by trade, he was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel, but the 1896 book that carries his name is a large compilation, much of it standard French repertoire of the period. A fish consommé of this kind belonged to the formal dinner menu: clear soups were served at the head of the meal, and a house with a proper kitchen kept both a meat consommé and a fish one so that the soup course could follow the rest of the menu — often said to matter particularly on Fridays and through Lent, when Catholic guests took fish, though that is custom rather than anything the book documents. The clarification with pounded raw fish and egg white is the classic technique, the same principle as the beef raft used for consommé of meat: the proteins coagulate as the liquid heats and drag the suspended particles up with them into a floating cake. The quantities give away the setting. Nobody makes five quarts of clear fish broth for a family, and the casual instruction to keep a two-gallon stewpan on the side of the fire for two hours describes a range that stayed hot all day.