A Clockwork Consommé

Ask nearly anyone to name one food that is good to eat when they are sick, and you’ll probably get the answer “Chicken Soup.” Chicken soup and its various permutations, Chicken and vegetable, chicken noodle, chicken dumpling; the list goes on for days.
But what about Consommé, the oft overlooked, very French, and somewhat fussy cousin of chicken soup? I suspect that few people (myself included) know how to make it, let alone know what to do with it once it’s made.

Consommé, despite the flashy name is simply a stock that is clarified using basically three items: Cheesecloth for straining, a little citrus for acidity, and the Albert Schweitzer of the culinary world, the egg (specifically the whites in this case).
Now I wasn’t about to try and make consommé from store-bought chicken stock. Not by a long-shot. Luckily, I had already made some chicken soup from scratch for this sore throat and runny nose affliction, and I already had some good homemade chicken stock on hand.

It was a surprisingly simple, albeit messy operation. I’m sure I went overboard on the cheesecloth since I didn’t have a suitable funnel, but the sheer transformation of cloudy stock to crystal clear consommé was well worth watching. A few whisked egg whites, some lemon juice, and a few minutes of hearty whisking was really all it took to get this thing going.

Over my simmering stockpot, I poured the eggwhite and lemon mixture and began whisking. Once it got to a boil, this scummy, crusty, and questionable lookingstuff settled on the surface of the stock. I followed the called for procedure for consommé making and did nothing…No stirring, whisking, skimming, skumming or agitating. I just let this toxic looking soup barely simmer for about an hour or so, then strained it through my cheesecloth into another pot.

The end result was miraculous. The egg whites latched on to all the suspended solids in the stock, and what made it through my cheesecloth was a light amber, yet crystal clear consommé. I was so excited that I nearly dropped the pan! It really was like watching a magic trick or one of those “Mr Wizard” science experiments. I wasn’t really hungry (since I already ate a fair amount of chicken-noodle soup), but this demanded a tasting. What better way to compare dishes than to make a similar dish, but with consommé instead of stock? I tried the consomme alone, and while I would feed it to someone who was deathly ill, it did lack body and texture. It was begging for some simple additions.

Invoking the name of Julia Child and Black-and Decker, my knife mowed through an onion, carrot, celery and garlic clove faster than a Jet-fuel-powered garden weasel. A quick sauté and a some tasty chicken chunks would bring the basics together. Choosing to go simple, I kept the seasonings on the easy side. Just a bit of salt and pepper, with a couple sprigs of parsley.

The result was amazing in its simplicity. The flavor was subtle, but the consommé provided a binding medium for each of the other ingredients that water alone would not do without flushing out and eradicating flavors. In every bite I could taste the distinct crunchyness and delicate saltiness of celery, the soft sweetness of the carrot, and the infused savor of the onions, all of it crowned with the tender, juicy pieces of chicken. The full measure of individual flavors miraculously carried together in the light, and ever so slightly thin veil of nothing more than clarified chicken stock.

This is what I would call "eater's food". It might seem bland at first, but what I liked about it was that it let the ingredients themselves remain the stars of the show. Truly a culinary experiment I was glad to have undertaken. Overall, it only took about 6 hours to make; that includes an hour for roasting a chicken, three hours for making stock from the bones, an hour for the consommé itself, and about 45 minutes of prep work between steps total.

Despite the relative ease of preparation, personally, I think I prefer the good ol’fashioned chicken stock for “feel-better” chicken soup dishes. But now that I have the consommé process down, I will not bat an eyelash at using it for other applications that require chickeny goodness, in a more refined setting.

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