Week 4: Stock and Soups II – Chicken Stock and Thick Soups – Cream Soups
- kelafoy
- Sep 5, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 8, 2021
Introduction
Perfect for the changing of the seasons, we’re making Chicken Stock, Beef Consommé, and that oh so delicious Creamy Tomato Soup. We’re even throwing in some homemade croutons for good measure. You know the drill…give it a scroll to see if my plan was fabulous or a fiasco.
Method of Cookery: “For this week we are continuing our work on Stocks and Soups, also, this allows us to continue to practice our cuts of vegetables and improve our knife skills. We will be making a white chicken stock which is made with chicken bones or chicken carcasses, vegetables, water, and herbs. This mixture is gently simmered for a long period of time before being strained and refrigerated. For soups we will be making a puréed soup, more specifically, a cream soup. For the soup, we will cook the vegetables in stock, purée it, this will thicken the soup before we finally add cream at the end. Another soup that we will make this week will be a clear soup, more specifically, a consummate. This soup is a very classical soup that requires a lot of skill, and you must follow specific techniques in order to successfully execute this dish.” (Plana, 2021)
Prior Knowledge of the Dish:
Whew child let me tell you!!!!! Tomato soup with grilled cheese is my FAVE!!! I remember my mom making it for me when I was a kid; especially after having dental work done. Honestly though, I never had anything other than canned tomato soup until last spring in my food production class. Check me out getting my training on...LOL.
We made tomato soup from scratch for the first time and BOOM…mind… blown. I will never, not in a million years…you couldn’t pay me enough…ever go back to canned tomato soup again.
I don’t know much about the history of chicken broth and beef consommé, other than what I have found through researching this week’s topics. I know they both taste super yummy and add depth to many of my daily dishes at home. Digging deeper into things I use every day is my favorite part of this journey. I like to learn new things, and there is nothing wrong with putting new wrinkles in my brain. I mean…it’s better than on my face. 😉
Learning Objectives:
Prepare a white stock (chicken)
Produce a cream soup (tomato soup)
Demonstrate a mastery of the consommé soup cooking technique.
Practice the costing of menu items
Background Information
Origin & History:
Consommé: “Consommé is believed to have come about during the Middle Ages, a time when European civilization showed the first glimmers of the stabilization and prosperity that was to come with the Renaissance. Because consommé took a good deal of meat to make, and because the time-consuming process resulted in a light course or accompaniment rather than a main meal, the soup was considered a dainty, elegant dish for lords, ladies, and grand occasions. Initially, “consommé” referred to the process rather than a specific dish. In addition to soup, there was a consommé made by boiling cartilage and bones to make a gelatin to which nuts and preserved fruits were added. Think of it as a forerunner of the Jell-O on grocery shelves today. Consommé’s reputation as food for the elite lasted over 700 years. It was especially popular during the Gilded Age when dozens of imperceptibly altered versions appeared…After several hundred years as a classic, consommé’s popularity began to fade at the end of the 1960’s and vanished almost completely in the 1980s, when formal dining was replaced by casual dining as a trend.” (Waggoner, 2015)
Tomato Soup: “The first published tomato soup is mentioned by Eliza Leslie in 1857 in her final publication New Cookery Book. Joseph A. Campbell's recipe for condensed tomato soup in 1897 further increased its popularity.” (Wikipedia, 2021)
Chicken Stock: “In Chinese medicine, whose origins date back over 2,500 years, bone broth is used to support digestive health, as a blood builder, and to strengthen the kidneys. Then, beginning in 12th century Egypt, physician Moses Maimonides was known to prescribe chicken soup as a medicinal remedy for colds and asthma. Maimonides was a rabbi and revered Jewish philosopher so maybe that’s one reason chicken soup has been a part of traditional Jewish kitchens for generations. It even earned the nickname Jewish Penicillin for its anti-inflammatory benefits and as a longtime remedy for cold and flu symptoms. Cultures far and wide have nourished their families with bone broths and handmade stocks throughout history for the same reasons we’re proud to craft it today.” (Poythress, 2021)
Methods Used:
SIMMER! SIMMER! SIMMER!
The name of the game this week is still a slow simmer. We don’t want to ruin the beautiful silky texture we are trying to accomplish. 😊 Check out the super cool image below to see the difference between a simmer and a boil.
Dish Variations:
Consommé: “Consommé starts as a full-flavored, rich stock which is then reduced with egg whites to remove the sediments and fat. The final result is a clear, intense tasting clarified liquid that is served as soup for an appetizer. Invented by the French, consommé is a popular dish that is loved for its taste. It also possesses a unique viscous texture that is thicker than everyday broth. Consommé has a range uses in cooking. It is the basis for aspic, a savory jelly containing pieces of meat or seafood. It can also be used added to casseroles, soups, and many other side dishes. Dumplings are taken to a new level when served in a flavor-packed consommé.” (Teague, 2019)
Tomato Soup: “Gazpacho is a tomato soup of Spanish origin, served cold. It originates in the region of Andalucía in southern Spain. Gazpacho is widely consumed in Spanish cuisine, as well as in neighboring Portugal, where it is known as gaspacho. Gazpacho is mostly consumed during the summer months, due to its refreshing qualities and cold serving temperature. Many variations of gazpacho exist…Commercially prepared tomato soup is available in a variety of forms including preserved, condensed and in dehydrated powder form. Industrial tomato soup may be canned or come in a large drink carton or bag.[6] "Tomato" ranks among the top three flavors of soup produced by the Campbell Soup Company.” (Wikipedia, 2021)
Chicken Stock: “Chicken stock is technically made with just chicken bones. The cartilage in the bones breaks down during the slow, long simmer and adds body to the liquid. This gelatinized cartilage is what makes a good stock solidify when it is refrigerated. A broth, on the other hand, is made mostly or only with meat. Chicken broth has little of the body of a stock, but it has much more flavor. Broth is especially good as a base for soups.” (Harvey, 2021)
References
“Beef Consommé: Elegant Comfort.” Forknplate.com. Susan Waggoner. https://forknplate.com/2015/03/18/beef-consomme/. 18 March 2015.
“Beef Consommé Substitute – 3 Best Options.” Cuisinevault.com. Nate Teague. https://www.cuisinevault.com/beef-consomme-substitute/. 18 December 2019
“Bone Broth History | Goodness Through the Ages.” Blog.barebonesbroth.com. Alex Poythress. https://blog.barebonesbroth.com/goodness-through-the-ages/. 2021.
“Chicken Stock.” Whats4eats.com. Brad Harvey. https://www.whats4eats.com/soups/chicken-stock-recipe. 2021.
“HOSP 2550 002 Week 4 Overview.” Auburn.instructure.com. Chef Ana Plana. https://auburn.instructure.com/courses/1381074/pages/week-4-overview?module_item_id=20251739. (Fall 2021)
“Tomato soup.” En.wikipedia.org. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_soup#:~:text=9%20External%20links-,History,1897%20further%20increased%20its%20popularity. 19 July 2021.
Dish Production Components
Recipes:
Going to try replacing the onion with fennel bulbs this week. Fingers crossed...AGAIN!!!!!
Plan of Work:
Plate Presentation:
Sources:
Reflection & Summary of Results
What Happened(?): TODAY WAS TOMATO SOUP DAY!!!!! Can you tell how excited I am about this? As I stated earlier, tomato soup is one of my favorite things to eat. “Tomatoes are packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and plant compounds that offer a wide range of health benefits. Research even suggests that these nutrients may protect against multiple diseases, including heart disease and cancer (1Trusted Source). Therefore, enjoying tomato soup may be a delicious way to make the most of the health benefits of tomatoes.” (Healthline, 2020)
We also created a beef consommé today. It was a lot more difficult than one might imagine. The trick is to get the raft just right. The raft is created by whisking egg whites to a light foamy texture and adding them to the rest of the ingredients in the pot…allowing them to all heat together at once. This builds a ton of flavor. “The principal behind a raft is that raw, denatured proteins attract cooked proteins. Egg whites, ground chicken, and the white mirepoix (the ingredients of the raft), are mixed together and then added to the cold chicken stock, and the mixture is then brought to a boil. Our instructor at the CIA called building a raft: A Test of Bravery. You take a chicken stock that you took four hours making and then create a raft... and if you burn the raft, or break it at the end, you have to start all over again.” (Anderson, 2021) We used ground beef in place of the chicken, and beef stock that we built on from last week.
Evaluation:
The tomato soup needed something to cut the acid factor way down. Instead of using sugar, like all good southerners do 😉, I put about ¼ Tbsp. into the pot with the vegetables and broth while they were simmering. This seemed to cut down the acid without changing the rich flavor palate I was going for. It foamed up quite a bit at first, but I was expecting it since I have tried this little trick in the past. Thankfully it continues to be my friend rather than my enemy.
Now the consommé…OH. MY. GOODNESS!! It was beautiful! The raft did break, but the result was not poor in any fashion. It would have probably developed a deeper flavor and been a little less cloudy had more care been taken with it. For a first-time production, I think it was a success.
Conclusions: The beef consommé proved to be a challenge. After doing a little more research, it seems as though maybe the heat was too high while simmering the stock for the consommé. By allowing too much movement in the pot, it caused the raft to break. “While the large protein aggregates formed by the ground meat do aid in the clarification process, their true purpose, along with all the other ingredients besides the egg whites, is to reinforce the flavor lost during clarification. As the stock gently simmers and percolates up through the clarification raft, particulate matter which would otherwise cloud the consommé is captured, along with flavor and gelatin molecules.” (Burton, 2014)
You can still see some fat in mine, but the clarity is light and crisp. I chose to garnish with a fresh basil leaf and brunoised red peppers. Side note: I did not personally cut those peppers...lol. They aren't uniform enough for my taste. 😊
The tomato soup was MARVELOUS. I am a little partial though. 😊It needed a little kick, so I deviated from the recipe and added ¼ tsp. of cayenne pepper and ½ tsp. of sweet paprika. Smoked paprika would have given a better savory balance but hey…you work with what you’ve got. Ultimately, I was very pleased with my dish. It even turned out the way I hoped it would visually.
As with most soups it needed a little something extra. Most of us like a little chew when we eat, even with soup. I sliced a baguette into cubes and split it into two bowls. In one bowl, I coated the bread cubes with clarified butter, salt, and pepper. The other bread cubes were tossed in basil, garlic, and olive oil. The end-result was some of the yummiest…. yes, I said yummiest…croutons I have ever tried. The basil croutons by far surpassed the plain buttered ones. The basil and garlic complimented the creamy tomato soup like oregano does with a heavy spaghetti sauce. It gave it that extra little pop of flavor that makes your mouth water anticipating the next bite.
As with every day in the lab, today was a great learning experience. I hope to take the skills I've learned today and try my hand at a consommé at home. If I do, I promise to document my success or failure. We could all use a good laugh from time to time right? Until next time!
References
“9 Health Benefits of Tomato Soup.” Healthline.com.https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/tomato-soup-benefits#The-bottom-line. Last medically reviewed on November 4, 2020
“Creating a Consommé with a Raft.” Justapinch.com. Andy Anderson. https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/soup/chicken-soup/creating-a-consomme-with-a-raft.html. 2021.
“SNS 018| HOW TO MAKE CONSOMME (CLASSIC CLARIFIED STOCK).” Stellaculinary.com. Jacob Burton. https://stellaculinary.com/cooking-videos/sauces-soups/sns-018-how-make-consomme-classic-clarified-stock. 07 February 2014.
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