A Soup For Summer

Here's a light soup, ideal for the summertime, particularly when you're entertaining dinner guests:

Essence of Celery Consomme

11 cups chicken stock
1 cup dry white wine
12 cups chopped celery, divided
1 cup thinly sliced celery
2 onions, sliced thin
1 tbls celery seed
2 tsp dried thyme
4 large egg whites, beaten
Shells from the eggs

In a kettle combine the stock, wine, 6 cups of the chopped celery, and onion. Bring to boil and simmer, covered, 30 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve set over a large bowl, pressing hard on the solids, and return liquid to the kettle. Add the remaining 6 cups celery, celery seed, thyme, egg whites and shells, bring to a boil, stirring, and cook the mixture at a bare simmer, undisturbed, 20 minutes.

Ladle the mixture into a fine sieve lined with dampened paper towels set over a large bowl. Discard the solids.

Can be made 2 days in advance, kept chilled, and reheated without boiling.

To serve, put the sliced celery in a heated tureen and ladle the soup over it.

As a classy alternative: Dissolve 4 envelopes gelatine in a cup of cold consomme. Pour in 3 cups of consomme heated just to the boiling point. Stir well to fully dissolve and incorporate the gelatine.

Pour the mixture into a sheet pan, and refrigerate until solid. Cut into a fine dice, and serve in martini glasses, with a bit of celery leaf as garnish.

A most interesting soup, I love the taste of celery and try to get it into all of the soups I make. I'm trying to make sure I understand this recipe, though. The first part results in a clear broth that is poured over the sliced celery? Do you prefer the pressing of the 'solids' by hand instead of using a food processor and straining?

The gelatin is a great way to be creative and may be the first way I try this

I was a thinking this was a huge recipe until I computed that 11 cups is a little less then 3 quarts. The 11 number made me think at first that this was a recipe for a crowd.

I've never tried the food processor & strain approach, Old Bay. I'd be afraid that it would make the consomme cloudy. But it's certainly worth trying.

Pressing by hand just assures the full flavor is recaptured. But it's likely not necessary, not with that double-brewing, as it were.

Yes, the result is a clear consomme, pale green in color. FWIW, a broth, technically, is made with meat (as opposed to a stock, which is made with bones).

The full recipe does make a bunch, but it freezes well. If you're going to make the aspic, I would cut it in half unless you're having a party. And don't use the sliced celery for that approach. It just gets in the way.

I've read a recipe for making Vietnamese pho soup that called for adding egg whites, mixing them in and then straining them out in order to clarify. I've never tried that in my homemade Pho, but know that if I eat at a Vietnamese restaurant that their soup is clear. I thought that they strained the broth. Now I think it's not possible to get clear broth without a trick.

Using egg whites and shells is an old technique for clarifying stocks and broths.

In the old days, they used the same technique to get rid of the bitter oils in coffee.

I had an Aunt that would put egg shells in the coffee percolator along with the water before perking. I was too young to drink coffee at the time but every that did swore by it.