Consommé Mercédès

Consommé Mercédès (clear pimento chicken broth with sherry) teaches restraint at the last instant. The one true thing is this: sherry is the perfume, not the cooking liquid. It goes into the clear, very hot consommé away from the fire, or its bright nutty aroma disappears.

The book assumed a saucier on staff, chicken consommé ready from a stockpot never off the fire, and another pair of hands to clean cocks' combs. Your honest home equivalent is one cold clarification in a single pot, cleaned combs from a specialist poultry butcher, and a warmed tureen standing in for the service pass. I have scaled the original four parts pimento consommé to one part sherry to about two quarts, enough for eight first courses. The endless stockpot and separate station are brigade scaffolding and can go. The clear broth, exact sherry ratio, short capsicum julienne, and freshly cooked cocks' combs are the dish and must stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

When it is right, the broth is jewel-clear and amber-red, the capsicum makes brief crimson lines, and the combs give a tender, gelatinous bite against the dry sherry. Begin cold so the raft can gather every particle, then guard the finish: lift the pot fully off the burner before the sherry goes in. That last movement decides the soup.