This month in Daring Cooks Peta challenged us to make consomme which is soup purified with an egg raft to produce a beautiful clear soup that full of body. Additionally, we were challenged to make a bread or cracker to accompany our soup.
I made a cold tomato soup consomme using the traditional egg raft method of purification and a sourdough baguette using a sourdough starter called biga which is sourdough started with wild yeast from grapes since it is grape season here.
Peta did an amazing job of defining a lot of soup terms that I think that someone new to soup would appreciate. Here are her definitions:
Fond is French for stock. Stock is produced by simmering raw ingredients in water or a mixture of wine and water, after which the solids are removed, leaving a thin, highly-flavoured liquid. Classic stocks are made from beef, veal, chicken, fish and vegetables.
Gelatine- Gelatine strength varies between brands and types i.e. leaves to powdered. Using gelatine leaves in gelatine filtering is a waste of an expensive item. Please read the directions on your chosen setting agent packet and use sufficient for a hard set of your amount of liquid.
Glaces – Glazes Are prepared by reducing a finished strained stock to a thick (think cream) consistency. This needs to be done slowly at a simmer and skimmed as required. As the amount reduces it needs to be transferred to smaller and smaller pots. Five litres of stock can be reduced to as little as a quarter of a litre (250 millilitres). The glaze can be heated and a small amount of butter can be whisked in for a lovely sauce.
Jus is a rich, lightly reduced stock used as a sauce for roasted meats. Many of these are started by deglazing the roasting pan, then reducing to achieve the rich flavour desired.
Mirepoix is a combination of chopped onions or leeks, carrots and celery in the ratio 2:1:1 by weight, it adds a lovely fresh note to soups. A white mirepoix is onions or leeks and celery. Some recipes use the peels, stalks, etc. of the mirepiox vegetables these must be of excellent quality or the result will be affected. If you add other vegetables to your mirepoix this changes it from a mirepoix to a bowl of finely chopped vegetables. To make 500 grams (1 pound) of mirepoix use 2 medium onions, 2 medium carrots and 2 large (12 inch/30 cm) celery ribs. To make 500 grams (1 pound) of white mirepoix use 4 medium onions and 4 large celery ribs.
Mirepoix has an 'evil' twin it is an aggressive flavour base for soups and consommés it is called
pinçage (pen-sazsh) and it is all about darkness – you slowly cook mirepoix (with the addition of tomato paste (just enough to coat the vegetables) for more sweetness, balancing tartness, and oomph) to concentrate, soften and caramelise the sugars for an incredibly complex brown flavour.
Raft a mixture consisting of finely chopped vegetables and minced (ground) meat with egg whites whisked vigorously into simmering broth and cooked over a low heat so that the proteins coagulate and form a 'raft' on the surface that traps the impurities (but not the flavour) of the broth thereby clarifying it.
Remouillage is French for rewetting, which refers to a stock made by re-simmering bones that have been used to make stock once already. Restaurants who make their own stock often start off the new stock with a remouillage.
Soup is a food that is made by combining and cooking ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water or another liquid.
Sweat to cook (chopped vegetables etc) covered over medium heat until soft but not coloured. This process intensifies the flavours.
Vegetables As we discussed earlier good ingredients make good stock. The fresher and tastier the vegetable, the better the stock. Unless you particularly want a strong flavour in your stock strong tasting vegetables such as fennel can change the flavour of a stock in an unwanted way. Use of starchy vegetables will ruin your stock, potatoes, pumpkin, etc have no place in a clear stock.
Types of Stock
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Fond Brun or Estouffade, or brown stock. The brown colour is achieved by roasting bones and mirepoix. This adds to the flavour. Tomato is added to help break down the connective tissue so the stock will set and to add flavour. Any type of bone can be used or a combination e.g beef and chicken.
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Fond Blanc, or white stock, is made by using raw bones. The bones are not roasted, chicken bones are the most common for fond blanc. For an even clearer soup no carrot is used.
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Fumet - Fish/seafood stock is made with fish bones or the shell sucks of prawn or lobster and finely chopped mirepoix. Fish stock should be cooked for 30 – 40 minutes at the most or it gets bitter. This is caused by the bones overcooking. August Escoffier uses pounded caviar in one of his fish consommés. Concentrated fish stock is called "fish fumet."
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Vegetable stock is made only of vegetables.
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Master stock is a special Chinese stock used primarily for poaching meats, flavoured with soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic, and other aromatics. It would make an interesting addition for a consommé though.
I feel that every home cook should know how to prepare a great tasting soup. Soups can be budget friendly and very nutritious. A while back I wrote a blog post on
my own tips for making the perfect soup broth that can be viewed here.
This was my first time making a consomme, so I wanted to challenge myself and use the traditional egg raft method which takes some finesse because if you destroy the raft all the food particles will go back into your soup leaving you with cloudy consomme. Luckily my consomme came out great. The tomato consomme came out to be a transparent yellow color and tasted amazing. The tomato soup was good and very tomato heavy in flavor, but the consomme was special. The consomme was full bodied and meaty in flavor. The harsh acid flavor in tomatoes completely disappeared. I loved the tomato consomme. I would even recommend the consomme to tomato haters.
For the biga or sourdough starter from grapes was fantastic. The biga had a nice wine scent. When I made the whole wheat sourdough bread with the biga, the biga produced a more complex sour but less harsh sour flavor compared to regular sourdough. I would recommend a biga starter to any sourdough lover. The whole wheat baguette was earthy, sour, and crispy on top. I loved it. I did not cheat and use any yeast, so the bread took about 12 hours to rise. The whole wheat sourdough bread was perfect with the full bodied tomato consomme. I think I will be making this combination again.
Tomato Soup Consomme (serves 4) modified from
epicurious and
My So Called Knife
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 lb tomatoes (I used Roma), quartered and puréed in a food processor
1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
8 large egg whites, chilled
1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fresh oregano
Directions
1. Saute the onions and garlic in a little olive oil until the onions are transparent, about 10 minutes. Mix the tomato puree, onion mixture, salt, and pepper in a large stock pot. Simmer the mixture for 20 minutes.
2. Chill the tomato soup in the refrigerator for 3 hours.
3. In a small bowl whisk the egg whites, herbs, salt and pepper until frothy. Add the egg mixture to the cold soup. Heat the egg and tomato mixture over medium heat. Do not add the eggs to hot soup because the eggs will cook immediately and not form a raft. Instead the eggs and soup need to be the same starting temperature to ensure a good raft formation.
4. When the broth simmers and the egg raft is floating on top, break a small hole in the raft. It is best to use a spot where there are bubbles coming up through the raft. Breaking the raft is a delicate practice. If you are too rough with your raft you will reintroduce impurities into your consomme. Continue to cook the consomme until the broth is transparent, about 15 to 20 minutes.
5. To remove the transparent broth, break the hole in the raft a little larger and gently ladle the broth out from under the raft.
6. Enjoy your consomme warm or chill to make a cold consomme.
7. To make your consomme shelf stable, pressure can the consomme in a weighted gauge pressure canner at 10 pounds of pressure for 20 minutes for pint jars or 25 minutes for quarts.
Ingredients for Biga or Sourdough Starter using wild yeast from grapes inspired by
The Accidental Scientist and King Arthur Flour
a handful of unwashed grapes (I used organic, nonsprayed, purple wine grapes)
2 cups whole wheat flour (any type of whole grain flour will work)
2 cups warm filtered water, about 110 degrees F
1/2 tsp sugar
Directions
1. Place the unwashed grapes in a bowl. You do not want to wash all the yeast off the grapes, so make sure that the grapes have not been sprayed with anything. Do not break open the grapes or cut them. The grapes should be whole.
2. Place the flour on top of the grapes and mix well.
3. Cover the bowl and place in a warm place for 48 hours.
4. Remove the grapes from the flour. Use the grapes in a
grape bread or in
rosemary flatbread with blue cheese and grapes.
5. Add the water and sugar to the flour and stir well.
6. Cover the sourdough starter and place in a warm place.
7. Check daily to see if the sourdough starter is producing bubbles. Mine was producing bubbles within 8 hours. This can take up to two weeks to get the fermentation started.
8. Once your sourdough starter is bubbling, then it is ready to use in a recipe.
9. Your sourdough starter needs to be fed flour and water every few days. I usually add 1/2 cup of whole wheat or rye flour and 1/4 cup of water to keep the starter fed. I like to keep my sourdough starter at thick pancake consistency, but some people keep their starter thinner or thicker.
10. You can make your starter go into a dormant stage by placing in the refrigerator for a few weeks or in the freezer for a few month.
Ingredients for Whole Wheat Sourdough Baguette (makes 4 baguettes) modified from
King Arthur Flour
2 cups lukewarm water
2 cups sourdough starter, about the consistency of thick pancake batter
5 to 6 cups Whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
1 egg yolk lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for glaze
Directions
1. In a large bowl, combine the water, sourdough starter, flour, salt, sugar, and vital wheat gluten. Form the ingredients into a dough. More water maybe needed if the dough is too dry or more flour might be needed if the dough is too sticky. You want the dough to be pretty sticky but not gooey. Knead the dough for 5 minutes. Whole wheat doughs need more kneading than white bread doughs.
2. Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover. Place in a warm place for 12-24 hours or until the dough doubles in size. Sourdough breads can take a long time to rise, so be patient.
3. Once the dough has doubled in size, shape the dough into 4 long baguettes by rolling the dough between your hands. Place the seam side down and wrap the edges under the loaf to produce a nice shaped loaf. Place the loaf on a baking stone or cookie sheet. Using a knife cut slots into the bread about half way down. Cover the dough with a towel. Allow the dough to rest for 1 hour.
4. Place an oven safe pan filled with water on the bottom rack of your oven. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. The oven should get nice and steamy.
5. Mix the water and egg yolk to make a glaze for the bread. Brush the bread with the glaze.
6. Bake the bread at 450 degrees for 20 minutes on a baking stone or sheet on the middle rack. The bread should sound hollow when thumped.
7. Move the bread to the top rack and turn on the broiler on high. Broil the dough until the crust on top becomes crunchy, about 3-5 minutes.
8. Serve with the tomato consomme.
Posted on These Chicks Cook, Whatever Goes Wednesday, What's Cooking Wednesday, Penny Pinching Party,
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