Le Cordon Bleu - Lesson 11

Soups! Yay, my favourite!  Nothing like a warm bowl of steaming pumpkin soup on a cold autumn day (or erraticly cold wintery Sydney summer day).

In demo, Chef Werner (our German chef with a developed sense of humour and sarcasm) brewed 3 pots of magic; pumpkin soup served in a golden nugget pumpkin, cold russian bortsch and lastly beef consume.  We got to recreate the pumpkin and consume (which we've been told is part of our final exam).

The pumpkin soup was a breeze, being probably one of my most popular home made dishes, although this recipe seemed a bit duller on the tongue, with the flavour of the bayleaf coming through quite strongly.

The difficulty came in on the consume, which is a clarified stock soup.   This means that you take a cloudy stock (which has already taken 2-4 hours to make), add a mixture of veggies, egg whites and mince meat (all robot couped and mushed up) and gently let it it cook in a big pot of stock.  As you can see in the collage of consume-stages below. As this happens the proteins in the meat and eggs attract all the impurities forming a raft on the top

of the soup.  This is not to be disturbed, otherwise you will re-introduce all the impurities back into the soup.  After slowly bubbling away for an hour or so (while you skim scum off the top), you'll see that the stock under the raft begins to clear.

Now if you're not managed to stuff this up so far, here comes the extremely tricky part - the removal of the raft.  (this is where you need to talk to your soup and really give it some love).  You carefully, a little bit at a time, remove the raft of gray cooked meat, veggies and egg white, until you have very little left.   Very slowly, patiently, slowly.

Then, you carefully, slowly, attentively pour the remainder of the soup through a chinwa covered with an extra filtering cloth.  Carefully, slowly (did i mention that already).

Still here?  Okay, now for the finale - because now you need to degrease your consume, which means you need to get all the grease off the top - this is shear near impossible, especially if you actually want to have soup left by the end of it!  You take pieces kitchen towel and wipe the top of your soup, over and over and over.....

and Finally, you'll be left with a beautifully clear, sparkling, almost sticky to the lips, rich in taste Beef consume.  Served with a garnish and steaming hot.  So next time you come across a consume at a restaurant, don't think 'ooh, it's just a clear soup' when it arrives at the table, think of the love and care that took to create it.

Finally, and so worth mentioning, is the cold Russian Borstch.  So easy to make, beetroot cooked in stock, blended up with a bit of raspberry vinegar and cream (not too much or it will be pink) and then topped with a yummy whipped parsley and salt cream.  So good.  Remember to serve it nice and chilly.

Picture - stages of making bortsch.