Rosie Makes A Chicken Stock And Transforms It Into Chicken Consomme.

It's Sunday afternoon. And baby, it's COLD outside. A perfect day to make some chicken stock. After all, we've been on soup mode lately. Mr. Hawthorne made the Lamb Soup Saturday night and I made the Cream of Broccoli for lunch today.

Rosie's Ingredients for Chicken Stock:
 chicken parts, carcasses, bones,  chicken feet 
Did you ever doubt I would have chicken feet? 
Good neighbor Bobby gave 'em to me.
 Now that's a good neighbor.
 2 carrots
 2 celery stalks
 1/2 onion
 salt and pepper 
fresh bay leaves 
(I used 5 fresh leaves. In case you don't have a bay tree right off your deck, you can used dried. I would only use 1 or 2 dried leaves.)

 I coarse-chopped the onion, carrots, and celery,
 added everything to my pot, and covered with water. 
Set over low heat and barely simmer, covered, all day. 
After about 5 hours, I added more water to the pot.

Mr. Hawthorne was kinda squicked out by the chicken feet
 and vowed not to eat any of this stock. 
Silly man.

Is the bird giving me the bird?

I added all ingredients to the pot and covered with water.

About a tablespoon of salt went in.

And a tablespoon of whole peppercorns.

Keep at a bare simmer.

After a few hours of barely simmering, I added more water back in.

After about 8 hours,
 I got tired of all this monkey business and covered the pot
 and set the whole mess out on the deck for the next 3 days. 
The temperatures have been in the high twenties to low thirties.
 Finally, today, Wednesday, I brought the stock and parts back in,
 heated it up, and strained out all the parts.

... And got this cloudy stock ...

... full of particulate matter ...

... which I need to get rid of.

At this point, I need to clarify the approximately 5-6 cups of stock.

To do so, I took 6 egg whites, whisked in 1 cup of cold stock, 
and brought the rest of the stock to a simmer. 
When the stock came to a simmer, 
I dribbled and whisked another cup of hot stock into the egg whites.

Then I slowly whisked the egg white mixture into the pan of hot stock.

Keep the pan over moderate heat, 
stirring to keep the egg whites in constant but gentle motion.
 Bring just to the simmer, then stop stirring.

Turn the heat to very low and set the pan at the side of the heat
 so that the stock barely bubbles in that quadrant.
 Let it barely bubble for 5 minutes. 
Then rotate the pan a quarter turn and repeat for 5 minutes. 
Rotate, barely bubble 5 minutes. Repeat.

You want the barest of bubbles bubbling into the raft.

To strain, I scooped off most of the coagulated egg whites,
 then gently poured the stock through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. 
Be sure the bottom of the sieve isn't sitting in the liquid.

Do not squeeze the cheesecloth, 
else cloudy liquid will come through. Discard the cheesecloth.

And would you just look at this?  
All the floating particles which have clouded the stock
 have adhered to the egg whites and have been drawn off. 
Compare the lovely consomme above to what I started with: Amazing, ain't it.

You're left with this clarified, glistening, jewel-like liquid 
 which is not only beautiful to look at, 
but has acquired a subtle refinement of taste.

This is now chicken consomme.

And it is magical.