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Read the chapters on stock

• Scott Daniels: We Ate Well and Cheaply
• November 22, 2019
• 894

I think there is a reason French and classical cookbooks start with chapters on stocks. It’s because they’re important. Making slow-simmered stock also is a rather zen experience, not difficult and yields something quite remarkable.

You can buy beef stock just about anywhere, but calling it “beef stock” is fiction. Regulations allow for so much wiggle room that it’s generally just beef-flavored water and you’re better off dissolving bullion cubes, though they’re very salty.

There are two things that are going to turn you off of making your own beef stock: time and the need to find a source for decent bones. I spent two days making a supply of it over the weekend after asking at two places for bones before finding them at a third.

At the first, an actual butcher counter with cases of beef, pork and chicken, three separate employees on three separate visits did not understand what I was asking for. “Why would you want just bones?” they asked. “What on earth would you do with them?”

They kept wanting me to buy rib steaks, which would not do. Another older butcher had what I needed, frozen. Grocers tend to package them in such small quantities that it’s silly. You’d have to buy 10 packages and would have $40 in a pot of stock. I don’t think they know what their purpose is either.

You’re looking for fairly good-sized beef knuckles, shin and neck bones. Making stock is the process of extracting flavors from bones, scraps of meat and vegetables, which are suspended in water. Those flavors then lend themselves to soups and sauces.

You usually want to make a big batch and freeze or otherwise hang onto it for use in the coming weeks.

Stocks can be reduced (cooked down) until they are a rather thick syrup called glacè or glaze. At that point you have a very concentrated stock and use very small amounts dissolved in whatever you are making. The glacè becomes your homemade bullion.

It is well worth the process, though I hadn’t done it in a few years. The results are very rich, infused with tremendous flavor and a useful bit of kitchen magic. Once you get the initial process started, you only have to keep an eye on things. Don’t allow it to boil, as this will pound the bones and cause the stock to become cloudy.

There are some varying thoughts on the process. At the best restaurant in the U.S., The French Laundry in California, the bones are blanched and never roasted.

Thomas Keller insists on a completely unclouded stock, which should be your goal. He gets color in the final result by using tomatoes in the cooking, which also is a traditional step in many recipes. You also can add veal bones if you can find them and chicken bones if you have them on hand, though I don’t do this.

Be careful of salt, adding very little as you don’t want to presalt the dish the stock will find its way into.

The rule is strain, strain, strain: first through a mesh strainer and then again through cheesecloth. You want to remove every speck of anything that isn’t the richly flavored water you’re looking for. Overtime you transfer the stock from one vessel to another, either for further cooking or chilling or storage, then strain it again.

Mine became a couple of crocks of baked French onion soup, bubbling with toasted bread, Swiss cheese and enough left over to cook down into the glacè, which will keep in a jar in the fridge for quite a long time.

BEEF STOCK

4 or 5 (or more) pounds of beef bones

2 medium onions, in chunks

2 large carrots, in chunks

2 cloves garlic, whole and unpeeled

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 ribs celery, in chunks

A bouquet garni made up of 2 bay leaves, a bunch of parsley, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 4 whole cloves, 8 whole peppercorns and 4 whole juniper berries in cheesecloth tied with string.

Pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 425 F; arrange the bones, carrots, onions and garlic in a large roasting pan; and roast them in the oven for 30 minutes, moving things around a couple of times. Remove from the oven and spread the tomato paste thinly over the bones on all sides. Return to the oven for another 30 minutes, until things are nicely dark brown.

Add the bones and vegetables to a large, heavy bottomed stock pot. Add the celery and bouquet garni, then enough cold water to cover everything by 3 or 4 inches. Discard the roasting pan fat, add 1 cup water to the pan and bring to a boil, scraping up the bits. Add this to the stock pot.

Bring the stock slowly to a simmer, partially covered, and cook at a slow simmer for 3-4 hours, skimming off any foamy gunk that rises to the surface. Turn off the heat and cool completely. Remove everything you can with a slotted spoon, then strain through a mesh strainer.

Put in the fridge until the next day and remove the solidified fat layer. Bring to a low simmer again and reduce by about half. Strain again through cheesecloth. It’s ready to use or freeze, or you can concentrate it further into a syrupy consistency and store in your fridge for a few months.