Rosie Makes Consomme. Again.

Last week, if you recall, I made a Black Bean Soup. It required chicken stock and, as I was out, I figured it was high time to whup up batches of both chicken stock and turkey stock.

I had several bags of carcasses and bones hanging out in the freezer, just waiting to be turned into delicious consomme.

Chicken stock on the right. Turkey stock on the left.

I coarse chopped onions, celery, carrots, and a head of garlic.

Salt, pepper, and bay leaves got added, and I kept it at a bare simmer all day long.

I strained out the veggies and broth through a cheesecloth. And don't worry. The veggies weren't wasted. Dixie got to eat the carrots and celery.

The cheese cloth really makes a big difference. Both pots above are of chicken stock. The one on the left I didn't strain through the cheese cloth and you can see all the particles. After using a bit of the chicken stock for the black bean soup, I covered both chicken and turkey stocks with plastic wrap touching the surface of the stock, and put both pots in the fridge, until I had time to make consomme. Now, I know I've made it before and blogged about it, but consomme bears repeating since there just may be some consomme virgins out there. Believe me, there's nothing quite like it.

A couple of days ago, I finally found time to actually make the consomme. I carefully pulled back the plastic wrap and most of the congealed fat came right of with the wrap.

I scooped up the rest of the fat particles with a fine mesh strainer.

The grande dame, Julia, says to use 4 egg whites per 5 cups of stock in the clarification process. As I had over a gallon each of turkey and chicken stock, that's quite a lot of whites. First I poured in 1 cup of cold stock to the egg whites. Brought the stock to a bare simmer, then added 1 cup of the hot stock into the egg mixture. Now be sure and stay tuned to see all the different ways I'm going to be using egg yolks.

When the stock is simmering, add in the egg white mixture. And bring the stock back up to barely simmering.

Set the pot off to the side and let it barely bubble in that area for 5 minutes. Turn the pan a quarter turn and let barely bubble again for 5 minutes. Repeat twice.

Next I scooped off the coagulated egg whites.

And carefully poured the broth through several layers of cheesecloth. This smells amazing.

And here's my liquid gold - crystal clear, sparkling consomme, with a depth of flavor and complexity that you'll never experience unless you make this yourself.

I ended up with 5 quarts of chicken stock and 5 quarts of turkey stock. And my freezer is pretty well stocked with fish stock, veal stock, and chicken and turkey consommes. I have only 1 quart of beef consomme left, so that's going to be next on my to-do list. First, I need some more bones.