During my stay with my friends Per and Ingrid, who enjoy cooking with fresh food and especially bone-in meats, I came to discover that *gasp* they don’t save their trimmings and bones for stock makings. Blasphemy!
Stock is awesome. It’s cheap as hell, even if you buy everything for it specifically, and easy to make. It adds flavor and nutrition to just about anything savory that you make with water traditionally. It’s a great start for sauces and gravies of all kinds, and makes for an excellent base for cups of warm broth when you’re under the weather. It allows for fast and healthy soup preparation, and cuts down on your waste factor, too.
“But I don’t use stock!” you say. Well, that’s partially because you don’t have containers of delicious home made beef jello in your freezer on demand. If you did, you’d be a lot more likely to find neat ways to use it. And having stock means that when you’re cooking a recipe that calls for broth, (even if it’s only on holidays, yo.) you know what’s in the broth and that it’s not full of preservatives and unnecessary sodium. Plus, at least for me, the act itself of making stock is grounding and nurturing and feels good.
“But I don’t have time!” you say. You probably do. You freeze the makings until you’re ready to use them, so there’s no pressure to make stock before your loot goes bad. You can make a damn fine chicken stock in about 5 hours, and you barely have to pay attention to it. That’s throwing the pot on the stove when you get home from work. If you’re ok with having something on the stove overnight it’s even easier. And really, aren’t you supposed to be making more time for yourself to relax, anyway?
I said I’d write down my method for them before I left, and forgot to, so I figured rather than send them an email, I would take the opportunity to jot it down here. Behold, after a couple years of research and experimentation, my method for making stocks:
Gathering ingredients: I generally have two large freezer bags in my freezer – one for meat, and one for veggies. Occasionally, if I happen to have bones from multiple animals, I’ll have a poultry bag and a cute land mammal bag. Though I’m big on experimentation I don’t really mix chicken/duck/turkey with beef/pork bones when making stock, the poultry is inevitably overpowered.
Bones: I roast chickens at home and save the carcass. Or, I get a roasted chicken on sale from my grocery and save that carcass. I take my bones home from restaurants. Sometimes, when I tell them it’s for stock, they will go to the trouble of packing me other bones they have laying around, too. When I want something specific, like cow knees for beef gelatin, I go to a bone fide butcher, and get bones for about .80c a pound. Keep the joints and the tendons and the gristle! That’s the best part for stock!
Veggies: I keep my ends and tops of veggies, and unused portions. Keeping things like kale stocks has encouraged me away from pre-packaged bags of kale to actual bushels of kale and to enrich my relationship with my food. Onions, carrots, sweet potato, leeks, kale stocks, that kind of thing. I stay away from delicate veggies like spinach or fruits that masquerade as veggies, like cucumber and tomato. I also don’t use whole garlic in my stock because it takes over, but I might try it for a veggie stock some day.
Ok, now that we have all that out of the way: This is how I make stock.
1) Add bones, enough water to cover them, and 1tbsp unfiltered apple cider vinegar to pot
2) Simmer 3-8 hours, adding water occasionally to keep desired level
3) Add veggies and herbs (Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, and a Bay leaf)
4) Simmer another 1-3 hours
5) Cool, strain, refrigerate/freeze
6) EAT THAT SHIT!
Starting the stock
I put what’s probably about 1.5 pounds of cooked bones or a chicken carcass in a 10qt stock pot, cover it with cold water (warm water if I’m in a hurry), add about a tablespoon of unfiltered apple cider vinegar, and put it on the stove on medium-low heat (the heat which I have found keeps a stock at a simmer when uncovered).
Some people skim the top of their stock once the water comes up to a simmer – I historically do not. I want all that stuff in my stock and I like for it to have sediment and as much fat and nutrition in it as I can get. This is a matter of personal choice. I think it’s more important to skim beef stock than poultry, personally.
The vinegar helps draw nutrients from the bones. Don’t add too much or your stock will be all vinegary.
Cooking the bones
You want the stock to simmer, not boil, and you want the temperature to rise slowly. I have started on high heat and turned it down once hot before, but I don’t like it – I have to pay attention more, and I risk boiling the stock. Instead, I will cover with a lid and check in about 20 minutes to see if it’s starting to steam, then take the lid off.
I make stocks with the lid off so I can keep track of it better, and because I like to reduce my stock a lot. It’s easier to boil stock with a lid on, but it can also prevent loss of liquid if that’s what you’re going for. Your choice.
Note: I have stuck with stocks that I have boiled and they taste fine, but don’t have the jello-like consistency when cold that I want.
I simmer and reduce the stock down, then add water, reduce down, add water in a few cycles with bones only for multiple hours before adding veggies. Veggies are more delicate and can’t take as much abuse. If I am simmering a stock overnight I put it on the lowest setting I can while still seeing some bubbling and add an extra few inches of water. So far, I usually have a few more hours of reduction ahead of me in the morning.
Don’t judge your stock until you’ve added the veggies and herbs, which are the fragrant and flavorful elements.
Adding Veggies and Herbs
As for veggies, I’ve made some stocks with so many veggies I could barely fit them all in the pot, and other stocks with less. I also experiment with what types of veggies and in what ratios. The things that I tend to stick with are at least half an onion, kale stocks and a carrot. I don’t bother with celery, it can get bitter when overcooked, and I don’t use it usually and you can’t just buy a stock or two.
Once the stock is reduced down again after adding the veggies, the liquid level is blow the veggie tops. It will look like a pot of squishy wet slop. I cool it for an hour or so on a windowsill before transferring.
Getting that shit outta there
At this point I squish the solid food to the bottom with the large pasta colander insert for my stock pot (http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-77-412-Classic-Stainless-12-Quart/dp/B0000UV01S/) – which if I didn’t have, I would substitute a potato masher for I suppose. This presses the stockmakings to the bottom allowing the stock to rise to the top. I then pour into containers, pressing the bulk down by squeezing both sets of handles on the stock pot, through another small strainer to catch extras.
I generally get a few pints of condensed stock out of a stock pot, and freeze most of it. I eat refrigerated stock within a week.
Dilution ratios
A few tablespoons of cold jelly in a mug + boiling water = a mug of broth, I probably do a 50/50 split that way. I salt and pepper to taste for each thing I use the stock for. While it may smell really good, a bit of salt is what really brings out the flavor in a stock, as most anyone who’s used unsalted broth can probably attest.
If you wanna know more, google. There are infinite resources for this stuff online.
Do you make stock at home? How does your method differ? What are your favorite ingredients?