Woooo... kitchen alchemy.....

Turned some turkey stock I made earlier this week in to consumme today. Woooo.

It's something I've always wanted to try, but just never bothered with. A well drained, homemade chicken stock is usually fine on its own for me. But, when I made the turkey stock, damn, that shit was full of teeny little pieces of junk.

The turkey stock, before draining.....

I was thinking of just doing some better straining, but while looking over recipes, I noticed that for my tart crust I need two egg yolks. To do the consumme ala the "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" recipe, I needed two egg whites. Ding ding ding! Jackpot!

I did leave some of the funkier stuff in the bottle of the container. I told you it was mucky.

Pretty easy method when you break it down... mix egg whites with a cup of stock, then add to the heating stock, simmer, let the egg raft thing form, and then strain it.

Simmering.....

More simmering...

Wooo... alchemy....

The final consumme....

Yeah, that's a dime on the counter. I swear if I had a better camera, you could read the date. Really. I swear. Honestly. Ok. At least you can tell it's a dime, and that makes me happy enough.

In any case, I'm pretty proud of my first try at it, and it's no longer an intimidating thing to me. Time consuming, maybe, but I can see how it is worth it. I'm resisting the urge to go knocking on the doors of my neighbors to ask if they have any need for turkey consumme, just to show off my skills. But it's around dinner time for most people (we eat late... usually around 7pm) and I don't think they'd appreciate the interruption as much as I think it'd be worth their time. And besides, I want to keep it all for me. Post-Thanksgiving gravy is gonna ROCK this year.