Clarifying Broth

CLARIFYING. It may so happen that, owing to insufficient skimming in the early stage of the proceedings, you find that the broth is not as clear as you could wish. You must therefore clarify it. There are two ways of doing this. By far the more efficacious of the two is to be carried out in the following manner:—In a coffee-cupful of the broth—cold—mix one egg whole, i.e., yolk and white; put this in a bowl with half a pound of finely minced fresh raw beef free from fat, stir well together, then empty the contents of the bowl into a clean stew-pan, pour the cold broth into it, and put it on the fire again, stirring continually till indications of boiling show themselves, upon which remove the pan from the fire, and set it on the margin of the hot-plate to settle for one hour. Then take the vessel off the stove, and pour the broth off gently through a broth napkin into the bowl, taking great care not to disturb the sediment. Nothing is gained by putting in vegetables for clarifying: they may even spoil the process. Perhaps, however, you may not have saved a bit of meat for this contingency; you can then attain your object with the whites of two eggs, thus:—Break the eggs, and throw the whites and the shells together into a basin—in this instance observe that the yolks are not used—beat the whites and shells up to a froth, with a coffee-cupful of the broth, and mix it, flake by flake, very completely, with the cold soup. Put the soup on the fire again, stirring well till it boils. Take it off immediately, cover it close, let it simmer for a quarter of an hour, and then pour it off as described. But clarifying in this way certainly detracts from the flavour of the broth. Additional clearness can in either case be obtained by allowing the broth to filter through the napkin a second time. When once nice and clear, care should be taken lest anything happen to mar the satisfactory appearance of the bouillon. There is one that often occurs in consommé with macaroni, vermicelli, and pearl-barley. You have got your stock as bright and clear as sherry, but after adding the ingredients just mentioned the soup turns cloudy. The reason is this:—Pre-served farinaceous food of the macaroni class often contains dirt—dirt that you do not perceive, and which can only be removed by boiling. Accordingly, whenever you intend to add it to consommé, you should blanch it independently in boiling water in order that the outside dirty part may be washed off by becoming dissolved. Plain washing in water is not enough; besides, washing macaroni is the act of an ignoramus.