Culinary School Chronicles - Soup

I must admit I was a bit disappointed by this week`s class on soup.  Now, I am a really big fan of soup so I was hoping to do something interesting and challenging like making and clarifying a consommé using an eggwhite and meat "raft" - basically something I had never done before, but nah.  We made vegetable soup.  Ho hum.

We talked about consommé mind you, but nope - no raft was built so I guess it will be one of those rainy Sunday projects I find myself engaging in from time to time.  Like making Espagnole Sauce or Demiglace.  Sigh.

Then again, until not that long ago, my concept of what consommé is came from my childhood memories of my Mother opening a can of Campbell`s beef consommé whenever I was sick - she just called it clear soup.

Consommé is a full flavored clear broth (a broth is a fortified stock) made from a base stock - usually chicken, beef or even duck. After you make your basic broth, you strain all the big pieces of vegetable or meat out of it, then it is clarified (meaning all the impurities are removed) to get the perfectly clear appearance that is characteristic of consommé.

To create a raft and clarify your consommé you combine ground meat with mirepoix (carrot, onion, celery), egg whites, and then add your stock.  You bring the stock and meat raft to a boil slowly, then reduce to a simmer.  The constant simmer creates a current inside the pot that floats all the impurities and fat in the stock to the surface of the liquid.  As the stock simmers, the protein in the egg and meat congeal (it is kind of gross) at the surface of the stock, forming a 'raft' which captures and holds any nasty bits once in your stock. After about 45 minutes you should be left with a clear liquid.  The consommé is then refrigerated to remove any remaining fat and can be run through a cheese cloth just to make sure.

Michael Ruhlman has a great post called The Consommé that describes the procedure very well.  So you can read his post, or just wait for yet another rainy Sunday in Toronto so I will make one and share with you all.  Shouldn't take too long.  Check back next week as this is an incredibly wet Spring in Toronto.

Much more interesting than vegetable soup, eh?  Anyway.....so what we did do was have a pretty brief discussion on the 5 French Mother Sauces (thankfully I educated myself on that previously) and then watch a demo of how to make a Chicken Velouté - and that is something that is still on my list of things to make.  Although it was like nails on the chalkboard for me every time the Chef would say Vel-oooot-eh (emphasizing the `oooo`) instead of the proper pronunciation of Vel-oo-TAY (emphasis on the `tay`).  Arrgggh.  But he is a super nice guy and I am learning stuff, so I`ll shut up now about his terrible pronunciation of French cooking terminology.

Until next Saturday that is....  :-)