Fish Consommé

Consommé de poisson (clear fish broth) teaches a stern and useful truth: clarification can polish flavor, but it cannot invent it. Before you touch a pan, taste the White Fish Stock (No. 11) cold. It must be clean, distinctly fish-sweet, and a shade stronger than the broth you hope to serve, because the raft will take a little character with the cloudiness.

The brigade formula assumed a saucier on staff, a stockpot never off the fire, and enough volume to forgive what remained in the cloth. A home kitchen needs one tall, heavy pot, a damp cloth-lined sieve, and enough stock to finish about two quarts. What changes is the quantity, not the method. The perpetual stockpot and service-scale handling are scaffolding and can go; the cold start, the fish-and-egg raft, and the slow tremble are the dish, and they stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Done well, the consommé is brilliant and pale gold, with the fragrance of the sea but none of its heaviness. The moment that decides it comes as the raft rises: stop stirring, open a chimney through its center, and never let the pot boil.