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Consomme in Cups
Two pounds raw beef from a shin, cut into pieces, any parings of chicken, beef and bones of same on hand, one-medium sized sliced carrot, one medium ditto sliced turnip, one ditto onion, one branch parsley chopped up, one clove sound garlic chopped up, one branch chopped celery, one ditto chervil, one ditto leeks, one tablespoon salt, ten whole black peppers, one clove, five allspice, one sprig bay leaf and one saltspoon thyme.
Place all the above in a saucepan, then pour in a little cold water to nearly cover the meat and other ingredients. Place the pan to one side and let it stand to infuse for one hour. Then place the pan on the hot range and gently stir the contents with a wooden spoon while cooking for five minutes. Pour in two and a half quarts of boiling water and stir well again until it comes to a boil. Cover the pan and let it slowly simmer for one and a half hours. Strain the consomme through a napkin into six cups or a hot tureen and serve very hot.
N.B.--When the consommme is not to be served in cups, but with vegetables, pastes and so on, then it should be strained into another saucepan, as you will be directed.
A straightforward beef broth built on shin, aromatics and a long cold infusion. The technique is sound; only the vocabulary and a few timings need translating.
- The hinge: never let it boilOnce it comes up, drop the heat so the surface barely trembles and skim the grey scum as it rises. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and protein into the liquid and no amount of straining will bring back the clarity this soup depends on.
- The standing hour is not idle timeCovering the meat with cold water and letting it infuse for an hour draws soluble proteins and blood out of the shin before heat sets them. Skip it and you get a cloudier, flatter broth. Refrigerate rather than leaving it at room temperature.
- ShinBeef shin is sold today as shank, usually cross-cut with the marrow bone in. Ask for it bone-in and use both meat and bone; the collagen is what gives this broth body.
- Saltspoon and other old measuresA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. "Ten whole black peppers" means ten peppercorns, and a "branch" is a sprig or a single stalk.
- A tablespoon of salt is a lotThat is roughly 18 g going into two and a half quarts. Add half at the start and correct at the end, especially if you use bones with any cure on them.
- Hot rangeRead this as moderate heat rather than full blast. The five minutes of stirring before the boiling water goes in is a light sweat, meant to wake the aromatics, not to brown anything.
- Simmering timeAn hour and a half will give a clean, delicate broth but leaves gelatin in the bone. Three to four hours extracts far more body; if you go long, add the celery, chervil, leek and parsley in the last forty minutes so they do not turn bitter.
- Straining through a napkinUse damp muslin, a cotton flour-sack towel or a coffee filter set in a sieve, and let it drip without pressing. Squeezing the cloth pushes fines through and clouds the result.
- Not a clarified consommeThere is no egg-white raft here, so expect a bright broth rather than a glass-clear one. Chilling overnight and lifting off the solid fat cap does more for its appearance than any amount of extra straining.
- YieldThe recipe is strained into six cups; expect somewhat less than the two and a half quarts of water you started with after simmering and straining. Serve as a first course, not a meal.
Consommé served in handled cups rather than soup plates was a fixture of late-Victorian and Edwardian entertaining, offered at balls, receptions and buffet suppers where guests stood, and later carried into the drawing room or the sickroom. The name comes from the French past participle of a verb meaning to consume or to complete, and it is often said to carry the sense of a broth "brought to perfection" — the point being a broth reduced to its clearest, most concentrated state. The vegetable list here — chervil and leek alongside turnip and garlic — marks the recipe as classical French kitchen practice, and the closing note, promising to direct the cook elsewhere on garnishes, shows how such volumes were built: one mother stock, then pages of consommés named for whatever was floated in it.