Day Three: Soups

What we did today: Made Soups.

So, what do you do with gallons and gallons of stock? Why, you make gallons and gallons of soup. We made: French onion soup, beef consumée and squash soup. French onion soup, now there is a funny story. But that is for another... What's that? Oh all right, I'll tell it.

At the age of fifteen I decided to cook my first fancy meal. One of the dishes I decided to make was French onion soup. I followed the recipe closely, caramelizing the onions and everything. Problem was that I didn’t make enough, so when I dropped the toasted baguette slices in, they just sopped up all of the liquid. To this day, my dad describes– with too much glee – my first attempt at French Onion soup as “the best tasting croutons he has ever had.” Thanks Dad! Well, at least it tasted good.

So, while this was not my first attempt at French onion soup, it was, at least, more successful than some past attempts. Like most soups, the quality of the broth or the stock used is of tantamount importance. In this case, the stock was really good, so as long as the onions were caramelized enough, the soup was going to be good. And it was, I gobbled up all of my soup. Mmmmmm, melted cheese!

One of the funner things we did today was clarify brown stock to make beef consumée. Basically you mix together chopped veggies (a mix of onions, carrots and celery called a mirepoix) , ground beef, and egg whites which you then add to the stock. As the liquid comes to a simmer, the egg whites congeal to form a sort of filter that floats on top of the stock. As the stock simmers, it passes through the egg whites which acts as a "filter" to captures all of the stuff that makes the stock cloudy. When you are done, you have a beautifully clear consumée.

The Single Most Important Thing I Learned: Don't get too excited when you are clarifying your stock to make consumée. Let the little bugger sit and do its thing. Otherwise you will break it apart, and then it can't do its job.