Cream of Broccoli is currently living on my uniform, unwilling to budge in the wash. I am not a creamy soup type of girl but after all of the hard work that goes into this soup I had a bowl. Cream of broccoli is made after a process of making "chicken veloute" followed by sweating vegetables which is the process of cooking them until they are tender without browning them. The two pots are mixed together, pureed, strained, the cream is added, and Cream of Broccoli it is!
Puree of carrot follows a similar method. As our spice of choice we added Cumin to our soup. This gave it a nice Mediterranean tang (think the seasoning in hummus) to it.
Chicken Consomme is one of the funnier dishes to watch cook. You heat up chicken stock and pour in a mixture of ground chicken, egg whites, tomato concasse and mirepoix. This combination is mixed in and then magically finds itself in what is called a 'raft'. All of the ingredients hold together forming this big blob on top of the soup. While it is extremely ugly to the eye this raft is what helps make a clarified, successful consomme. Chefs are judged based on how clear their comsomme soups are so this ugly raft is a really key to a good chef! To complete the dish, a sachet de epices (spices in a sachet) is put into a hole sliced into the raft called the 'chimney'. The soup is simple yet flavorful and a great base for other dishes (aka Matzo Ball soup).
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