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Consomme Aux Lazagnes
Prepare a consomme, strain into another saucepan and keep simmering. Plunge four ounces lazagnes into a quart boiling water with a teaspoon salt, boil for twenty minutes, drain well on a sieve, then add to the consomme; boil for five minutes, pour into a soup tureen and serve with two ounces grated Parmesan cheese separately.
A garnished clear soup of the simplest kind, where nearly everything depends on the broth and on not letting the pasta cloud it. Two details in the original need adjusting: the quantity of consommé is never stated, and the pasta is boiled far too long.
- How much consomméHow much consommé -- The recipe gives no volume. Four ounces of pasta and two ounces of Parmesan would suit roughly two quarts of consommé, enough for about six as a first course, but that is an editorial estimate; the original states nothing.
- "Lazagnes"Broad flat egg-pasta ribbons, not the large modern sheets meant for baking. Use dried mafalde, pappardelle or reginette, or break lasagne sheets into rough two-inch pieces.
- Cook the pasta separatelyThis is the hinge. The pasta goes into its own quart of salted water so the starch stays out of the consommé; a clear soup cooked with raw pasta in it turns cloudy and is difficult to bring back to brightness.
- Twenty minutes is too longModern dried ribbons need 8 to 10 minutes, and since they finish in the hot consommé, drain them a minute short of al dente.
- The final five minutesTreat it as a brief reheat rather than further boiling. Two or three minutes at a bare simmer is enough to marry the pasta and broth; a hard boil will fray the ribbons and muddy the soup.
- StrainingStraining the consommé through a fine sieve lined with damp muslin, then holding it at a simmer rather than a boil, keeps it bright. Skim any fat from the surface before the pasta goes in.
- ParmesanThe original has it handed round separately, so each diner adds it at the table, which also keeps the broth clear. Use a good Parmesan, grated finely and just before serving.
Clear soups in the grand-hotel repertory were named for their garnish, and the French-titled menus of the period borrowed freely from Italy: consommé with pasta, rice, or profiteroles all sat under the same heading. "Lazagnes" is an older, unstandardised spelling of lasagne, the word generally traced to the Latin lasanum, a cooking pot, and said to have been applied to broad flat ribbons before it meant a layered baked dish. That the cheese is offered separately reflects service practice rather than thrift; a consommé was judged on its clarity, and anything stirred in beforehand risked spoiling it. Recipes as short as this one may well assume a kitchen with consommé already to hand, which would explain why the book bothers to specify the pasta and the cheese but not the broth.