Consuming Consomme

Could there be a more perfect time of year to make soups than winter? I think not. Sometimes nothing could be better than a hot bowl of your favourite soup on a cold, miserable, winter day to warm you up inside. The beginning of winter is also a perfect time to learn how to make soups. You'll be making them all winter, any chance you get, trust me. It is much quicker( with the exception of beef consomme) and easier then you would ever dare to imagine.

I, like many of you, am a big soup lover. I cannot get enough which is why I always love learning how to make new soups. I've made all the typical ones before such as minestrone, chicken noodle, and butternut squash but I feel i've " made it to the big leagues" so to speak after I perfected the beef consomme. Beef consomme tells the story of people being cold and hungry, and also desperately needing some form of energy to push them through the day. It also tells the story of a poor cow whose meet was ground, mixed with egg whites, vegetables and cooked out in beef broth. Regardless of how you look at it, beef consomme is one tasty, nutritional, soup.

Now I know what you are thinking. CONSOMME, French, fancy, must be complicated, but trust me it is not. It starts with egg whites being whisked in a bowl, approximately 6, about a pound of ground beef, some very small diced carrot, celery, onion, and leek. Mix that all together in a bowl and place the mixture in a stock pot. Cover the beef with beef stock. Turn on to medium heat and let that simmer. The key here is what is known as " forming the raft" seen in the picture below.

Seen here: The ground beef mixture 

sort of congeals together into a solid mass and floats to the top as a raft. 

Because the liquid wants to 

boil over the sides of the raft, It is imperative you make a whole in the middle to release the pressure. What you get underneath is a beautiful crystal clear, full of flavour, consomme. When this is finished you want to strain the soup and get any particulars and impurities out of the soup so it can remain crystal clear. Season with salt, add some diced vegetables to the soup and serve.  

The finished Consomme is the in the large bowl at the top of this picture. (above)

The soup, for the most part and a very beefy flavour, ( but I think that is sort of the point), although not too strong. Seasoned with the right amount of salt it truly is a perfect soup for a cold day. I personally do not like salt period, so I drank it plain and it was still very enjoyable. The main think I like about it is how full of protein and how nutritious it is. I will definitely be making this at home throughout the winter months as I feel I have perfected it and would not change anything that I did the first time when making the soup. It can be eaten cold, hot, and today a lot of chefs are using molecular gastronomy and making it into a gelatinous form. Whatever the form, consomme is definitely here to stay!