Stock you.

It's cold, and rainy, and I'm avoiding memorizing music. The husband has retreated to the den to fix the artistic world, and I'm drinking instant coffee from Starbucks. 

There are so many things not right about this picture, especially for a Saturday morn at 9am. 

What happened to the slow times?? I often comment that as Yanks - Americans in gen actually - we don't really understand the concept of "relax" and when we do, by the time there's time, we end up getting sick from our bodies getting ticked off at us.

In all the craziness of our world here at home, I decided this weekend I'd make some stocks. 

Different than broths - stocks are richer, more complex, darker, and generally just better.  I tend to think most companies that produce these kinds of ingredients don't like to market stocks because, well, they just take up too much darn time. We're talking about 12-14 hours total to produce (if you do it slow and right). Here's how you go about making a stock....

Get a lot of bones, of one kind of animal, unless you want like a strange kind for very specific dishes. For chicken use a whole carcase from a roaster, picked over for all the bits of meat still left. For beef, you can use those "soup bones" that they sometime have in the market - usually frozen. 

Put these bones into a roasting pan, or a oven safe container of some kind. Add one large onion cut up, one carrot, one stalk of celery. This is traditional. You can also throw in a few cloves of garlic. Or whatever other veg acout. that you like. Put into a 350 oven until it's brown, very deep brown. Not burnt but brown. 

This means the items have caramelized - all their sugars have been brought out to play in the sunshine, and now they're toasted!

Throw into a "stock" pot, top with cold water - a lot of cold water, like, 3 inches from the top full - throw in a bay leaf (or 3) some parsley sprigs, pepper corns, thyme sprigs, etc. It's great! As long as it's not dirty throw it in!!! You're gonna strain it all through a sieve later anyway!

Here comes the part that makes us all virtuous. Patience. 

You put this pot on the stove and simmer it (NOT BOIL) it for hours. I usually keep the lid on for at least 3 or 4 hours to really milk the flavor of the browned goodness submerged. Then I take it off and let it reduce for another 4-5 hours. Make sure you skim off the gross stuff on the surface every hour or so. That's the leftover junk from the bones that you don't want in your finished product.

Then Strain it, you can use cheese cloth, or a fine sieve, I use a sieve. 

Then I put it back in the pot and let it reduce a little more till it looks like the right color...what color? That's right, brown!!!

We usually keep a container in the fridge of about half, and then put the other half in the freezer. You can also put it into ice cube trays and the you'll have nuggets of stocky goodness to pull out whenever. 

If you keep reducing till there's almost no liquid left, it looks almost like a paste, this is a demi glace, and you can freeze this too. Then add a tablespoon of this to sauces, etc. 

I hope you'll try to make your own stock. Start using instead of broth for sauces, and soups. Though sometimes using a broth is the way to go, usually a chicken broth. Try the recipes both ways, one with broth and one stock. See which you like better. Kitchen basics also as a great line. 

You'll notice I didn't talk about adding salt. I like to only salt a tiny bit in the first stage, before roasting. This way you can completely control how much salt is in your final, FINAL product. I'm talking about the sauce or soup you use it in. Look on the back of a supermarket stock sometime, then ask yourself if you want to eat all that salt.

So enjoy the rainy day, take a few moments to throw some old bones and badly cut veggies into a pot. Make your own stock! It's so easy, even a French peasant in 1643 could do it, why not you!