Fish Consommé

Add some class to your life...

Fish consommé is the sort of basic skills-type post I’d normally post over on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. But apparently, no one makes fish consommé anymore, which is a crying shame. If you add this skill to your kitchen toolkit, you will never look back.

Let’s start with what is a consommé? It’s a sort of double stock where you take an existing stock, chill it overnight, then reheat it with a ground mixture of flavor enhancers and egg whites, which, once the concoction simmers 45 minutes or so, results in an astonishingly clear, rich broth that has so much body it sets up as a gel in the fridge.

If it sounds like a lot of work, it is — if you aren’t enamored with the restrained beauty, grace and flavor of a proper consommé. This is the Grace Kelly of soups. At first, your family or guests will look at their bowls and shrug. Huh? Then they’ll taste the broth and you can smile as their eyes light up. You will likely hear gasps of wonder. It happens a lot.

A good consommé reminds me of a northern beauty: stately, elegant, sure of herself, but never flashy. She just shines with a golden light. So does a good consommé.

Making one isn’t terribly complicated.