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Consomme Colbert
(France.) Clarify 1 quart of beef stock, well flavored and made from fresh meat, add 1 tablespoonful of sherry, and in each plate put an egg, poached in water and vinegar, to keep it firm and white. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve very hot.
A quart of clear beef broth with a poached egg dropped into each bowl. Almost everything depends on the clarification and on the egg being trimmed and hot, since there is nothing else in the plate to hide behind.
- Clarifying, since the book assumes you knowWhisk two egg whites (and their crushed shells, if you like) into cold, degreased stock, bring it slowly to a bare simmer without stirring once it clouds, and let the raft set for 20-30 minutes. Ladle the consommé out through a damp cloth rather than pouring, which breaks the raft.
- Stock from fresh meatThe instruction matters: this wants stock built on raw shin or chuck plus bones, not leftover roast trimmings, or the flavor reads thin. Skim every trace of fat before clarifying, as fat is what makes a finished consomme cloudy and greasy on the lip.
- When to add the sherryStir it in off the heat, at the last moment. Added before the final heating it simply boils off and you lose the point of it.
- The vinegar in the poaching waterAbout a tablespoon per quart of water is enough; more and the white tastes of it. Poach the eggs in plain water, not in the consommé, or the raw white will cloud the soup you just spent half an hour clearing.
- Trim the eggsLift each poached egg with a slotted spoon, blot it on a cloth, and cut away the ragged skirt of white before it goes in the plate. Three minutes gives a set white and a liquid yolk.
- "Serve very hot"A cold bowl kills a quart of consommé instantly and there is no fat or starch to hold heat. Warm the plates, and have the soup at a near-simmer when it meets the egg.
- YieldOne quart gives five or six first-course servings of five to six ounces each, the customary portion for a clear soup.
- The usual garnishClassical versions of Colbert also carry a spoonful of vegetables cut in fine dice or julienne and cooked separately in a little stock. The book omits them; adding carrot, turnip and green bean brunoise is faithful to the name.
Consomm Colbert belongs to the long roster of French garnishes named for figures at court, and is generally traced to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented. In Escoffier-era practice the name signals two things: a poached egg and a fine vegetable garnish in an otherwise crystal-clear beef consomm. It appears here flagged simply "(France.)", in six lines, in a turn-of-the-century American collection of foreign dishes.