A consommation of the affair

If it seems criminal to write twice about soup, then please forgive me - for there are far greater crimes committed here than my article.

This is about the consommé. A dish that is a crime against the very substance of food. A bowl full of as little as possible. Fortunately it fell foul of fashion many years ago, and in the 21st century is considered a laughing stock. And yet, the notion has been fascinating me for some time.

All I really know about consommé came from a tin, when I was a child - many years ago now. I think it tasted like bovril, which is no surprise as bovril is meat juice. And that is what a consommé should be - the very essence of meat, distilled into a clear, sparkling liquid. Nothing but taste, passable, dismissive, taste of meat.

It's the creation - the rendering of this clarity - that presents the real mystery. Heston Blumenthal, who has about as much charisma as I have culinary talent, presented his clarification only the other day. Yet he committed a crime against truth by claiming the process requires "special equipment". This, from a man who instructs his viewers to buy dry ice. In fact the only special equipment it needs is an egg - which, I guess, is pretty special in its own way.

So a consommé is this - a rich, deeply flavoured stock (chicken, beef, game - it's your call) clarified by beating through it a mix of egg white, egg shell and assorted flavourings: meat, herbs, as you wish. This is to trap the unwanted.

I believe it's what the Deepwater Horizon repair team referred to as a 'junk shot', but chefs may call it a raft.

After some time, the raft surfaces to the head of the stock, filtering out all impurities and leaving behind nothing but sparkling, flavoured liquid. Ready to be served - with a garnish of course. For mine, I deeply fried some chunks of chicken thigh with salt and pepper (this, truly, is the best chicken recipe). However, I had a little more to add. I Having rafted the white and shell of the egg I was left with the yolk.

So I committed one final crime, a crime against logic - by deep-frying the egg in breadcrumbs. No joke!  It could be something like a minimalist scotch egg. I won't go into the details, but rest assured there was no trickery here.

So there it was - a chicken consommé. And the taste? A bit like chicken, of course.