To Clarify Stock
Ingredients
Directions
Clarify the stock
Place the stock in a clean saucepan over high heat.
When boiling, beat the egg white in a little cold water.
Add a small amount of hot stock to the egg white and beat until frothy.
Pour the egg mixture gradually into the pot and beat vigorously.
Allow to boil once, then immediately remove from heat.
Strain
Strain the stock through cheesecloth.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Egg white
- Its proteins coagulate when heated, trapping suspended particles so they can be strained out clear.
- Stock
- The liquid being clarified; its clarity is what the egg white is meant to improve.
The step that matters
Allow to boil once, then immediately remove from heat. Boiling the stock vigorously after the egg white is added breaks up the coagulated raft and makes the stock cloudy again. Bringing it to a single boil and stopping lets the raft trap impurities without breaking apart.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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