Recipe: Strawberry consomme - gelatin clarification

The real topic here is actually the gelatin clarification process, but it in itself is not very appetizing.  Strawberries however, are very much so, and are a perfect example of a situation you would want to use this technique.  Sure you could clarify a strawberry soup using egg whites, but your consomme would taste more cooked as it simmered away on the stove, and it's a pain straining a consomme anyway.  Using the gelatin clarification process uses minimal heat, and therefore lends itself splendidly to fruit soups - and it's really easy.  Conversely, if you have a nice savory broth, there's no reason not to use this technique with it as well since it is probably already right where you want it flavour-wise already. 

If it's not quite strawberry season, you may want to cheat a bit, put it on the stove and work a little sugar and love into the flavour before pureeing, but if the berries are prime, you can start from fresh, either as a puree or run through a juicer.  The clarification process will take out the solid matter, so remember that and don't be surprised when the resulting consomme is significantly reduced in volume from what you started with - if you use a puree, you may want to add some water to give you volume without watering it down (your soup should be delicious before clarification).  I'm going to pick up the process with the ready to work puree / juice / stock as it's the following steps which are more important.

As an additional note, strawberry consomme is a great starting point for a dessert cocktail.

You will need:

strawberry puree / juice / stock

gelatin - sheet or powder

cheesecloth

a scale 

room in the freezer

Method:

 - weigh your puree / juice / stock

 - calculate 0.5% as your measure for gelatin - eg.  1kg stock will need 5g

 - bloom your gelatin

 - heat the stock just enough to melt the gelatin

 - dissolve the gelatin in the stock

 - set in a container you can either:   a)  invert onto a straining apparatus lined with cheesecloth

                                                          b)  turn a frozen block out to cut up (carefully) on the counter

 - once the gelatin is set, place in the freezer and freeze solid

 - line your straining apparatus with cheesecloth, and place the frozen consomme inside

 - transfer to the fridge and let the stock slowly thaw through the cloth into the catch basin

 - the resulting liquid should be beautifully clear and ready to use