Talk:Consommé

Oxtail Consommé Photo
Looking at this photo I find that is not a Consommé or a real bad job making it. Look at the soup and notice you see oil spots in it. The soup should be clear. This week I will try to find a better photo or make a Consommé myself. The photo just needs to be a clear soup with no garnish in it to show what a True Consommé look like.

As I am a big fan of textbooks please refer to Culinary Fundamentals "The American Culinary Federation" copyright 2006. On page 357 under subtitle Consommé is states "Consommé are clear soups made by combining a richly flavored stock or broth with a specific mixture of ingredients to produce a crystal clear soup with no trace of fat." There are some very nice photos of rich amber color Consommé. AdmRiley (talk) 12:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Needs to be improved
Does any one know why this is here meats or "Mosselin"? Mosselin = any prepared dish made light and fluffy or airy, as by the mixing in of whipped cream or beaten egg whites. The egg whites do not make the soup light and fluffy it is there to hold the raft together in the clarification process. I am going to leave it for now I may be missing something, it might be some new cooking term.

1. "The meat is best if it is ground very fine into mousselin."

This should read the meat is best if it is ground just before use.

2. "They are most often served with garnishes which vary in complexity from a simple splash of sherry or egg yolk, to cut vegetables, to shaped savory custards called 'royales'."

The garnishes should by no way take away from the finsh dish. By adding sherry or egg yolk that would hurt the clarity. I will need to-do some more research and find sources.

3. "Consommés tend to be both expensive and difficult to make. A large amount of meat can yield a small amount of consommé. In some recipes, as much as a pound of meat can go into a single 8oz serving."

This statement is half true, expensive no and difficult yes and lot of time. I have never heard of a pound of meat to make 8oz soup. All the recipes that I looked at are giving a pound of meat to make 2 quarts or a gallon.

4. "Lengthy process of skimming all visible fats"

How long is a lengthy process? AdmRiley (talk) 13:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Alternative Method?
Should we not include the more modern method of making consomme? The method in which the stock is frozen, placed on several layers of cheesecloth over a fine chinois suspended over a vessel. The frozen stock is then allowed to melt gradually in the refrigerator, as the frozen stock gradually melts the impurities of the stock are trapped by the cheesecloth and the chinois. Resulting in a clear broth without the laborious process of classic clarification. I saw this from Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection show, and I vaguely remember seeing this method mentioned in Herve This' Molecular Gastronomy.

Also the use of egg whites can leech out flavors from the broth, resulting in a less flavorful consomme. Therefore the clarification process is ideally only done once. This is according to the cooking textbook I have in hand: On Cooking by Labensky, Hause and others.

Corendir (talk) 20:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Corendir

Variations - Double Consomme
I am unable to find a single source for the statement "Some say to double the quantity of meat [to make a double consomme]". There are very many that back up the reduced to half method. Can the author or anyone else cite a source for the double-meat method? Air (talk) 22:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

significant error
The clarification process of simmering stock with ground lean raw meat, chopped vegetables, and egg whites is NOT intended to "remove fat." The fat must be removed *before* this final clarification process, as any fat in the base stock will reduce the ability of the albumen in the meat and the egg whites to trap the suspended solids. Traditional consommé is high in protein and gelatin, but almost fat-free. I agree with others that the photos showing fat on the surface of the consommé are misleading in this regard. (See: Escoffier, Ma Cuisine) (or, page 5 of: Auguste Escoffier, The Escoffier Cook Book, (New York: Crown Publishing, 1941). A more minor error is the suggestion that "parchment paper" can be dragged across the surface of stock to remove the floating fat. Parchment paper is designed to resist fat (not absorb it). What you want instead is an ordinary paper towel, or anything else that will absorb the fat in preference to the (watery) stock. MarkTonWiki (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Tomatoes?
Pretty sure that consomme does not classically include tomatoes, where did you get this from? (2604:2000:C5EC:DE00:D46D:600E:57B7:491B (talk) 21:25, 20 February 2015 (UTC))

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Strange text and photos
I just found it odd the sentence "The resulting concoction is a clear liquid that has either a rich amber colour (for beef or veal consommé) or a very pale yellow colour (for poultry consommé)," when the two pictures in the article show the opposite (the poultry consomme looks very dark, and the beef consomme, while amber, definitely lighter.) Just sayin'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mercster (talk • contribs) 13:55, 21 January 2020 (UTC)