Four Days to Make a Bowl of Black Glass
Some people make stock.
I made a controlled, double-infused, double-clarified consomme with enough structure and depth to look like black glass. Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal. ;-)
It was clear enough to see yourself in a spoon… but so rich you couldn’t see the bottom of the bowl.
This took four days.
And I’d do it again… and I have improvements when I do.
Because this wasn’t a recipe. This was a process. And processes can be sharpened.
The Idea: Build Power First… Then Earn Clarity
Soup is about immediate comfort.
This wasn’t that.
This was about density without cloudiness… beefiness concentrated like espresso… clarity clean enough to reflect light.
So the plan was simple:
Roast hard for depth
Pressure extract for efficiency
Chill for control
Infuse again for concentration
Clarify to restore purity
Clarify again to put back the freshness a grind like this takes out
Concentrate one last time
Serve it like it deserves silence
Phase One: First Beef Run (Roast → Pressure → Chill)
It starts with beef bones.
I take beef bones and slather them with tomato paste. Then I add:
chopped onion (skins on)
chopped carrot
chopped celery
cracked pepper
a bit of salt
oil
Then it all goes into the oven for one hour at 425°F.
Next time: I’ll do a two-step roast… dry bones first, then roast.
Also next time I’m adding about a pound of stewing beef. This run was just meat on the bone.
Why meat, you ask?
Because I’m in the broth business today, not stock... let me explain.
Meat vs Bone: Two Different Jobs
Meat and bone are not the same thing. They don’t “bring flavor” in the same way. They aren’t interchangeable… and if you treat them like they are, you get a pot of something vaguely brown that tastes like heat and hope.
Meat gives you flavor.
Immediate, aromatic, recognizable flavor. It’s the part that says “beef” in a way your brain understands instantly. It’s savory, round, human. It’s what makes you want another sip.
Bone gives you structure.
Bones don’t scream. Bones don’t perform. Bones build the scaffold. Collagen. Gelatin. Mineral depth. The density that turns liquid into something that coats a spoon and sits heavy in the mouth without being greasy.
If meat is the melody, bones are the bassline.
Broth vs Stock (And Why “Bone Broth” Is an Oxymoron)
Here’s the simplest way I can say it:
Broth is about flavor.
Stock is about foundation.
Broth is what you drink.
Stock is what you build a kitchen on top of.
So “bone broth” is marketing. It’s rebranding. It’s selling stock to people who want the story more than the substance.
If it’s made from bones… extracted for collagen and structure…
that’s stock.
And what I was building here wasn’t a wellness drink.
It was a clear, brutal, structured consomme that behaves like architecture.
When the roasted goodness comes out, it goes straight into the pressure cooker.
I fill with water just to cover everything, and run it for 90 minutes.
Then I strain it, chill it, and let the fridge do what it does best.
Overnight it forms a fat cap… thick, clean, and beautiful.
That fat cap is proof the extraction worked. And I can tell you that fat cap will find its way on top of roast potatoes very soon.
Phase Two: First Veal Run (Roast → Pressure → Chill)
Then I do the whole thing again… but with veal bones.
Same roast. Same pressure cook. Same chill.
Beef brings the punch. Veal brings the velvet.
Two broths. Two personalities.
Phase Three: Double Infusion (Roast Again… But Pressure Cook With Broth)
Now I do it again.
Fresh bones. Fresh veg. Same roast.
But this time I don’t cover the pressure cooker with water.
I cover it with the broth I already made.
This is the double infusion.
At first it feels like you could do it forever… just keep looping more bones through the same liquid until it becomes a meat singularity.
But water tops out.
Two rounds is the ceiling.
After that, you’re not adding beefiness… you’re just moving it around.
So I stop at two.
Phase Four: Clarification (The Raft)
Now the double-infused broths get cleaned.
Each day’s broth goes into a blender with:
~300g chicken breast
two egg whites
And what comes out is not food… it’s the smoothie from hell.
It’s pale, thick, unsettling… and it looks like something that should not be in a kitchen.
But it’s the key.
That smoothie goes back into the pressure cooker for 10 minutes… not to “cook” it like food, but to force the proteins to set into a raft. Under pressure, all that chaos becomes structure. The egg whites and chicken breast grab onto every floating impurity, rise to the top, and build a filter you can actually see.
This is where the pressure cooker becomes magic… extreme heat, complete stillness. The classic Escoffier raft is built over a simmering pot and you babysit the surface the entire time because one ugly bubble can fracture the raft and turn your creation into soup again.
But pressure cookers have their own rules. No release. No rushing. You let it settle naturally until the raft finishes its job… and the liquid underneath goes dead clear. Beef, veal… same ritual.
Phase Five: Clarify Again (The Raft Stops Filtering and Starts Giving)
Then I do it again… because I want the freshness back. That grind takes something out.
Beef gets “clarified” with ultra-ground lean beef and egg whites. Veal gets the same treatment with ground veal. In truth it’s doing very little filtering this time.
We used chicken as the first filter because it was neutral and didn’t impart flavors.
This time we want to put back some meat flavors so we can drift towards au jus and away from bone.
The raft becomes a flavor donor.
Ten minutes under pressure… then a full natural settle.
The Last Reduction: 20% More, No More Than That
Before I touch the vegetables, I concentrate the consomme by another 20%.
Not because I’m trying to turn it into syrup… because I’m tuning it.
Twenty percent is enough to deepen everything… to bring the aroma forward and tighten the finish… without crossing the line into “too much.”
There’s a point where reduction stops being concentration and starts being distortion.
At 20%, it’s sharper, darker, more focused… but still clean.
Still clear.
Still glass.
The Final Move: Blooming the Vegetables
Now I make the brunoise:
carrot
shallot
celery
A couple millimeters. So small they float.
I cover them in hot beef consomme and let them bloom.
Service: Beef + Veal, in the Correct Ratio
For service:
1/3 beef consomme
2/3 veal consomme
plus the floating brunoise.
Salt. Pepper.
Next time: maybe a single drop of lemon… or Madeira.
Not enough to change it.
Enough to sharpen it.
The Result: Black Glass
Clear enough to see yourself in a spoon.
So rich you can’t see the bottom.
Quiet. Controlled. Weaponized.
My wife really enjoyed it.
Not by any means as much as I wanted.
To be fair, there is a lot of heavy lifting being done by romance. I walked the road so this dish has more in it than the liquid.
But don’t sell it short…
This was two-star Michelin level.
Some of the carrots were a millimeter or two wide; kiss that third star goodbye.
And if she doesn’t see that…
Well tomorrow I’ll introduce her to the Campbell’s offering.
I’m looking forward to that comparison.