STOCKS AND CONSOMMÉS.
whites and shells, etc. A very fair clear soup often,
though improperly, called consommé, may be obtained
from cooked bones, or a mixture of raw and cooked
ones. This, if clarified nicely, produces a very
palatable soup, answering most of the purposes of
consommé, though gourmets would at once detect
the difference, from the gelatinous flavour imparted
by the use of bones.
Purées are produced by pounding, or crushing
through a sieve or tammy, the solid material, vege
table or animal, of which it is made. This form of
soup is one of the most economical and also about
the easiest to make. The one point to consider
about this soup is that the solid part is apt to
separate from the fluid, and no matter how fine
the sieve or tammy used, to become gritty or
granular in the process. To counteract this a
liaison (as it is technically called), or thickening,
consisting of either egg yolks, or some form of
starch, mixed with a little milk or cream, is added.
Thickened soups consist of clear stock (generally
made with bones, etc.) or second stock (obtained by
re-utilising the materials used in making first-class
consommé), thickened by the addition of eggs, or
some form of starch, such as flour, arrowroot, sago,
tapioca, etc., or of a combination of these.
Broth is simply stock freed from grease and
served otherwise just as it is cooked, with the
vegetables, rice, etc., used in its composition, left
in it. A typical example of this is the so-called
Scotch broth.
These four divisions represent the various classes
B 2