Skills 1 Day 5



Knife Tray (with Julienne veggies for Garnish)

This is the Raft of a Consumme



Day 5 was consumme day. Consumme is perfectly clear broth that is very rich in flavor, the clarity is achieved by combining quality stock with globular proteins such as the ground meat and egg whites that go into a consumme. This was the last day we would have to complete our knife trays in an hour which was scary because I always take just about the entire time just like everyone else in the class, so we all enjoyed the hour we had to complete the tray. It was time to turn them in and everything was good on my tray and chef was impressed with my cuts, except my julienne and brunoise could use a little work as far as consistency. Which is something that could easily be fixed the next class. After cleaning up our stations it was time for chef to show us the demo for consumme. When you make consumme at first the liquid and all the ingredients looks like dirty dish water and not very appealing, but through the cooking process it creates this thing called a raft. A raft is when the egg white cooks and collects all the ingredients and impurities in the soup and it forms a hard raft type object on the top of the soup, this is what makes the soup clear. This process is very important because if you don't pay close attention to your raft it will burn and your consumme will taste like burnt fried egg, which is not the flavor you are looking for in consumme. We had to julienne carrots, parsnips, celery, and leeks for the garnish in the soup. Those vegetables have to be blanched since they do not cook in the soup, so they must be cooked an alternative way. I finished blanching my vegetables and my soup was ready to be strained. I strained it and amazingly clear soup came out of the pot it was amazing, and a pretty awesome science experiment. I put the veggies in the bottom of the bowl and filled it with my soup and took it up to chefs desk. He tried it and told me that the flavor was great and the vegetables were cooked perfectly! Yay!!!! I was so happy and excited once again, I was smiling from ear to ear literally. It was a good day in class!