"consomme" news and stories

• Pie pumpkins hit the shelves and gives us the means to lather in pumpkin flavoring.
• And while you make those pumpkin foods, drink Great Lakes Brewery Pumpkin Ale.
• Bread and butter -- it's not longer just a throw-off food for prisoners; it's a gourmet experience.
• Molecular gastronomy: Ferran Adrià talks about food and context, travels to Toronto to discuss A Day at elBulli: An Insight into the Ideas, Methods and Creativity of Ferran Adrià, and The Star makes Consommé.
• Recipe: Corn, Scallop, and Mussel Chowder

Before I started making stocks and soups, I falsely assumed that tasty broths were just naturally clear. Then I got my mom to show me how to make her post-Thanksgiving turkey broth. The taste was there, but so was the fat, and that less tasty looking gelatinous goo that came from chilling it in the fridge.

But what about consomme? Michael Ruhlman's latest post details how to turn that homemade stock into a delightfully clear consomme. I plan to test this once Thanksgiving hits, if I can pull myself out of turkey hangover and find the drive.

If you have experience with the art of consomme, is this how you do it? What are your techniques?

From Cooking with Soup (1968), A Campbell's Cookbook

I'm interrupting the semi-regularly scheduled Midnight Sausage series to share molded food images and recipes from my personal collection of early-to-mid 20th century cookbooks. There will be aspic. There will be mousse. There will be various gelatins. All will be semi-solid and of debatable degrees of edibility.

Please feel free to shimmy and shake your way to the comments section to share your very own magical, masticable molds of yore.

Previously - Jellied Bouillon with Frankfurters

Last week I mentioned that Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) is one of my favorite cold weather foods. I love the warm, anise-scented broth next to the cool crunch of the fresh bean sprouts and herbs. However, it's one of those dishes that I think of as restaurant-only. I've never attempted to make it, mostly because I know the broth is fairly labor-intensive.

The level of work that it required didn't scare away Brys from Cookthink (it appears that he rarely shies away from complex cooking projects, a trait that endears his blogging to me) and it looks like he created something tasty and close to authentic (except, where's the star anise? *). For those of you who have never made consommé, his narration and pictures will help you navigate those tricky waters.

Me, I'm just looking forward to the next time I can get down to South Philly for a steaming bowl of Pho.

*Even though I read Brys' post three times, I missed the star anise until a commenter pointed it out to me. My mistake!

Source

It seems that the scene will soon be exploding with new restaurants. In a special section, the New York Times covers the coming restaurants.

• Some restaurants will be headed by star chefs, others are opening elsewhere, but originated in NY, and really, there are just too many to count.
• The new vibe in restaurants is casual and cool
• Why does it take so long (and so much heartache) to get a restaurant to open?
• Critic Frank Bruni takes a dive into fish-heavy Soto
• Go! Go! Curry keeps it real with Japanese comfort food
• But it's not all just about restaurants. For the home kitchen, Mark Bittman does a paella and Harold McGee explains gelatin filtration