Fruit Consomme

Strawberry consomme at Per Se...not my picture.

If you know what a consomme is you're in luck. If not, well: it's a flavorful broth that is crystal clear thanks to the addition of egg whites that "clarify" the stock (the eggs come out along with all impurities).

While I was on my externship for school (location will remain unknown for fear of the night terrors returning) and my friend was on her's, she told me of consommes made from peaches, blackberries, strawberries, etc. Intrigued, I asked her how she did it. Turns out it's not a true consomme, but instead a purely crystal clear liquid that is a byproduct from macerated or gently, slowly cooked fruit. When I asked her about how she did she claimed she used a double boiler, putting fruit, and sugar or flavorings, in a metal bowl covered in plastic wrap on top and boiled for 1 hr, then removed and let stand (granted this last step she left out the first two times, the first time I tried on extern in front of the only Chef I've looked up to, scorched a pot and foggy liquid - never listen to your Baker friends!). Needless to say...her recipe was a bit off (though she swears by it), but eventually I got it down.

I realized that the appropriate way to do it is putting a pot of water on the stove, and simmer it, DO NOT let it boil. Place a metal bowl on top with the fruit inside (I added a liberal amount of sugar as well) covered tightly with plastic wrap. Double-boiler (and by that I mean SIMMERing water) for an hour to an hour and a half. The idea here is to make the berries (I used raspberries, washed, whole) sweat, not cook and boil. Once its sweated and a lot of liquid has seeped out remove it from the stove and let it sit for 30-45 minutes. Strain, gently, in a fine-sieve into a bowl.

Downward view into glass, iPhone underneath.

I still have a huge fascination with these awesome things. I haven't found a real use for them besides a sauce, but even then its much too thin for that. It's a beautiful liquid. A pint of raspberries yielded only about 1/4 C of liquid, but its really cool and very full of flavor. What can I say? These have kinda become a fetish of mine. Love them. If I had a stove of my own I'd be doing every weekend just for shits and giggles.

Apparently you can also make these simply by sprinkling sliced berries and fruits (pears, peaches, apples, plums) with sugar and letting them sit in a bowl in the refrigerator for several hours and you simply remove the berries and there's your liquid. The fruit is more palatable this way, certainly, but to me this is the cheating way...but that's just because I spent too much time perfecting the on-the-stove method.

By putting enough sugar with the berries you could essentially make a...fruit-flavored simple syrup that would be super intense. Just screams being poured into cocktails, ice teas, etc (none of those I drink...but it sounds good, right?).