Developing an Appreciation for the Soup Nazi

I have a little catching up to do. I wanted to share with you our soup lesson from Wednesday night. We made a split pea soup and a potato leek soup, which we were allowed to bring home :-) This made for some good lunches during the week! We also made a beef consomme, which was based off the beef stock we made last week, and french onion soup.

A consomme is just a purified and clarified beef stock. To clarify the stock, and bring out all the impurities, a mixture of ground beef protein, julienned vegetables, tomatoes and egg whites are used. The acid in the tomatoes and the blood from the meat protein, help to set the egg white, and are essential in ensuring a clear and brilliant clarification. A "raft" forms on the top of the pot, which catches all of the impurities. I thought that this was an interesting process, so I wanted to share several pictures with you to take you though the different stages.



Here, you can see the "raft" beginning to form:



It forms over the entire top of the pot:



Once the raft forms, a hole must be made through the center with a ladle. After an hour of simmering, the consomme needs to be ladled out through this hole. In making the hole, you need to be extra careful not to break the raft, or your consomme will be cloudy:



Once the consomme simmers for an hour or so, it is ladled out and strained through a chinois covered in cheese cloth so only the liquid remains. Here you can see the fat on the top of the consomme. To remove the fat, you skim the top with pieces of parchment paper. The fat sticks to the parchment. This is done until all the fat is removed.



My consomme after the fat was skimmed:



Final presentation. This is a classic dish in french cooking. The broth should be crystal clear and the vegetables should be uniformly cut into small macedoines (cubes):



Additional pictures to be added to my photo album.