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Consomme, Semoule
Prepare a consomme and strain it into a saucepan. Thoroughly wash in cold water and drain well four ounces semolina, then dredge it into the consomme; mix well and boil for fifteen minutes, mixing occasionally, pour into a soup tureen and serve.
A clear soup thickened lightly with semolina, of the kind that opened a formal dinner. The instructions assume you already have consommé made and clarified; everything that can go wrong here happens in the first thirty seconds, when the grain goes in.
- Rain it in, do not dump it"Dredge" here means to scatter the semolina over the surface in a thin, steady stream while stirring, exactly as for polenta. Tipped in at once it clumps into a solid centre that no amount of later stirring will break up.
- How much consomméThe original gives no volume. Four ounces (about 3/4 cup) of semolina suits roughly 2 quarts of consommé for a soup that is faintly bodied rather than porridgey; use less grain if you want the broth still visibly clear.
- Washing the semolinaThe original calls for a cold-water rinse and thorough draining, probably a precaution against grit or insects in loosely stored grain. Modern packaged semolina needs no washing, and skipping it saves you the awkward business of draining a fine wet grain.
- Fifteen minutes is for coarse grainFifteen minutes may be longer than you need -- Semolina is sold in a range of grinds, and fine or quick-cooking grades are done in 5 to 8 minutes; taste for any chalky centre rather than watching the clock.
- It thickens standingSemolina keeps swelling off the heat, so a soup that looks correct in the pan will be noticeably heavier in the tureen. Pull it a touch thinner than you want it, and hold back a little hot consommé to loosen it before serving.
- SeasoningConsommé is seasoned before clarifying, but the added starch mutes salt considerably. Taste and correct after the semolina has cooked, not before.
- ServingTwo quarts gives 6 to 8 first-course portions. Grated Parmesan is sometimes handed separately with semolina soups, though the recipe as written expects the soup plain.
Semolina is the coarse middlings of durum wheat, the same grain that makes dried pasta, and its use as a soup thickener runs straight through nineteenth-century European cooking — Griessuppe in Austria and Germany, semoule in France, and the pastina-style clear soups of northern Italy. Books like this one catalogue consommés by their garnish rather than their base: one stock, clarified once, then sent out a dozen ways with tapioca, vermicelli, royale custard or, as here, semolina. The habit reflects a professional kitchen economy in which a single large pot of clarified stock underwrote an entire menu, and the cook's daily variation was a matter of what was rained into it at the last minute.