World’s Best, Most Incredible Flavor

I spent the remainder of last week completing my work for the speech class, then parts of yesterday and today doing the work for my two online classes, Sanitation and Nutrition, that I had put off in order to work on my speech project. But that’s all done now.

Also yesterday and today I made my pork glace de viande. Yesterday I took the bones from 5-6 pounds of spare ribs and roasted them at 475° until well carmelized, then carmelized mirepoix in the same pan on the stovetop. Covered both with water in a stockpot and simmered for a 3-4 hours with a sachet. Strained and cooled. At this point it was thick from the gelatin but not solid, and tasted perhaps a bit too heavily, I thought, of mirepoix.

Today I ran about a pound of the meat from yesterday’s boning, perhaps a half pound of mirepoix veg (didn’t weigh any of this), and a half dozen egg whites through the food processor until well chopped/mixed, then added that to the stock to make a pork consommé. It came out beautifully clear, if a little fatty because the meat wasn’t lean. Although it was actually less fat than I’d expected, if I’d been serving the consommé I would have needed to remove it. However, that wasn’t my goal. Instead, I then reduced the consommé to a glace de viande, poured it into an ice cube tray, and cooled it. Total yield: six smallish rubbery ice cubes. It doesn’t sound like much, but oh my god was it good. A serious competitor for the best flavor you’ve ever tasted. No hint of too much mirepoix now. I licked the spoon when it was liquid, and ate a couple of little tiny gelled specks, and I can still taste it more than an hour later. It was an incredibly rich flavor. People would pay for this flavor all by itself. And lucky Dakota got to lick the ice-cube tray, though only because my tongue is inadequate for the job. I hope she appreciates how lucky she is. She also got some of the used clearmeat from the consommé step for dinner.

So now I have my six little rubber ice cubes, with which to make some good glazes or sauces. Who’s up for dinner?