By The consommé call came Sunday night at eight o'clock. Teddy had made it that afternoon — he had waited for a Sunday when his parents were home so someone could see him do it — and he called me while it was still warm in the pot. His voice had a quality I had not heard in it before: the flat affect of someone trying to manage a stronger emotion than they want to display. I asked how it looked when he ladled it and he said it was clear. Not pretty clear or almost clear. Clear. I asked how it tasted and he was quiet for a moment and then said: "It tastes like it knows what it is." I told him that was the phrase I had been trying to find for forty years and that he had just nailed it.
He drank it from a cup standing at the stove as I had instructed. He said the cup was something he had not expected to matter but it mattered. Drinking it that way rather than serving it was a way of acknowledging what you had done before you turned it into a dish — a private ceremony between the cook and the cooking. He said his mother had come in while he was standing there and looked at him and then looked at the pot and then quietly left the room, which he thought was the right response. Sarah, I have always known, understands things without requiring explanation.
The stocks curriculum is complete. Chicken, veal, fish, shellfish, and now consommé as the culmination. I told Teddy that most professional cooks never do a proper consommé because it is slow and technical and the result is a clear broth that looks simple to people who do not know what they are looking at. He said he thought that was fine. The people who needed to know what it was would know. I told him that was the correct outlook.
The maple season is winding down — the snow is mostly gone in the lower field and the sap has started to taste bitter, which means the buds are opening and the season is over. I pulled the taps Wednesday and rinsed the lines and put the equipment away clean. Twenty-two gallons of syrup in total, one of my three best seasons. I put eighteen gallons in the pantry and kept four in the kitchen and felt, as I always do at the end of maple season, the particular satisfaction of a thing completed at its proper time.
When someone has just made a proper consommé for the first time and drunk it standing at the stove from a cup, the last thing you do is complicate it — but if there is to be a next step, if the broth is to become a thing you set in front of another person, toast points are the right answer. They are as spare and deliberate as the consommé itself: bread, heat, and the understanding that nothing should compete with a broth that already knows what it is. I have served them alongside clear soups my entire cooking life, and I still find them to be one of the most honest things you can put on a plate.
Toast Points
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 4 slices good-quality white sandwich bread or pain de mie, crusts removed
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- Optional: 1 tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the broiler. Set your oven broiler to high and position a rack about 4 inches from the heat source. Line a baking sheet with foil.
- Butter the bread. Spread a thin, even layer of softened butter across one side of each crustless bread slice. Season lightly with sea salt.
- Toast under the broiler. Arrange bread slices buttered-side up on the prepared baking sheet. Broil for 2 to 3 minutes, watching closely, until the tops are uniformly golden and the edges show the first signs of color. Flip and broil the reverse side for 1 to 2 minutes until lightly golden but not as dark as the first side.
- Cut into points. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for one minute on the pan — they will crisp further as they rest. Using a sharp knife, cut each slice corner to corner twice to yield four triangles. Work with a single clean stroke so the points hold their shape.
- Serve immediately. Arrange alongside a cup or bowl of consommé or clear broth. Garnish with a pinch of chopped parsley if desired. Toast points are best served within a few minutes of cutting.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 110 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 12g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 180mg