What I Ate For Dinner

The French call stock one of the "fonds de cuisine," or foundations of cooking. Without it, many soups, sauces, braises and the like would be unthinkable. A lovingly made stock will reward its producer with color, aroma and flavor unattainable by any other means. What's more: stock requires little expense, technique or equipment. All you're doing is transferring flavor from solids (vegetables, bones, meat) to a liquid (water). Over the centuries, a few helpful do's and don'ts have emerged, making it a pretty-close-to-fail-proof operation, but it does take a hell of a lot of time. Mostly unattended, but time nonetheless. The following preparation would work for veal or chicken stock, too, with the only difference being a substitution of bones.

If you could make only one stock, it would ideally be veal stock. That's the versatile, classic French brown stock, as well as the traditional base of demi-glace, the versatile, classic French sauce. The thing is, unless you have a caged calf or two in your backyard that you feel like slaughtering, you may have some problems getting your hands on the eight or so pounds of veal bones requisite for stock-making. Call around to butchers and see what they're charging. For me, veal bones are out of the question if they're going to multiply the cost of the stock by several times. Stocks, after all, are supposed to be cheaply had as the metabolism of kitchen detritus (veggie scraps, knuckly bones, etc). Paying a butcher several dollars a pound for bones seems to violate the spirit of things.

The CIA's cookbook, The Professional Chef, tells us that "bones from younger animals [like veal] contain a high percentage of cartilage and other connective tissues that break down into gelatin during simmering and give the stock body. Knuckle, back, and neck bones are good for stock making." If you have all manner of bones to choose from, heed this sage advice. If your goal is to make a stock that uses up kitchen scraps, though, you might try to make something the night before that will yield a stockable bone or two. Roast a whole chicken, for example, braise some shanks, or roast a rack (or two) of beef ribs. Any of these will provide you with a bunch of bones to use for stock. Slow and steady more your pace? Then "stockpile" bones in your freezer like a serial killer. You want a lot of bones: eight pounds of bones per gallon of stock would be a ballpark number, but in practice, you basically want as many bones as will fit into your stock pot. A little meat on those bones is good, too.

Once you have your bones in order, rinse 'em, dry 'em and roast 'em. You want a deep brown color, but no burned blackness. This should take around 30 or so minutes at 350.

Then, place them in a stock pot and fill 'er up with enough cold water to slightly submerge the bones. Leave some clearance for the vegetables you'll add later, too. You must use cold water in stock. Cold water is more limpid than warm or hot to begin with, and second, cold water allows for a slower rise in cooking temperature, thereby allowing impurities in or on the bones to float to the surface where they can easily be skimmed off.

While the bones and water are heating up, sauté mirepoix in a separate vessel (mirepoix is a rough dice of 50% onion, 25% carrot and 25% celery). You want to sauté these until the onions get some good golden coloration. Once the mirepoix is well colored, slather a few spoonfuls of tomato paste over them and cook for a minute or so. As the tomato paste cooks, it will give a rusty, burnt orange color to the mirepoix.

At this point there are two schools of thought. The Professional Chef says that you should deglaze the mirepoix pan with enough simmering stock water to submerge the vegetables, and then simmer the mirepoix and bones in liquid separately for five hours. With this method, you only combine the vegetables and the bones for the last hour of simmering. Says the august cookbook: "adding the aromatics [to the pot of simmering bones] at this point [after five hours of separate simmering] will allow enough time for the best flavor to be extracted but not so much time that the flavor is broken down and destroyed."

The CIA is probably right and we should probably simmer two separate pans for five hours. I cheated, though. After adding the tomato paste, I deglazed the mirepoix pan with a bit of water from the stock pot, ran a wooden spoon around the bottom to release as many of the encrustations as possible, and added the mirepoix to the stock pot with the bones immediately. Whichever method you use, add a few sprigs of thyme (well rinsed), and a few whole peppercorns once you have the vegetables and bones in the same pot. Bay leaf would be a good idea, too.

There are a few things to keep in mind while simmering your stock. You want the lowest simmer possible. A few bubbles breaking the surface from time to time, and that's it. A vigorous boil will disperse fatty globules throughout the stock, lending a greasy feel to the final product. If you keep it on a low simmer, you'll be able to easily skim off the fat that floats to the top. Skimming the scuzz is only necessary about every hour or so. Never add salt.

Let the stock simmer for about 6-8 hours, if not longer. For beef stock, some recipes say to go as long as ten hours. I let mine go for around seven. Taste it regularly to get a sense of how the flavors are coming together. When you're done simmering, you need to filter out as much particulate as possible. Particles in the stock not only detract from its clarity, but also shorten its shelf life because they turn sour. To strain, sling a scrap of cheesecloth over a colander set atop another stock pot. For extra peace of mind, secure the cheesecloth with a rubber band or kitchen twine. Remove the bones before straining. Then pass the liquid through the cheesecloth and into the second pot in a slow, steady stream. Repeat this two or three times to maximize clarity. Any remaining fat will float to the top under refrigeration and can be easily skimmed off as a solid.

Stock, as you've probably noticed by now, is not the sort of thing you'll feel like making everyday. Having some on hand is a great asset, but when you don't, you still want to make sure to steer clear of canned or dried bullion if at all possible. Those guys are just too salty. If you're interested in shorter cooking times, consult Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He has an expedited chicken stock, for example, that he says can be done in an hour. I've never tried it, but since time is the only thing between you and great stock, it might be worth a shot. Another shortcut: find someone who sells good stock. Anything commercially packaged (either in cardboard canteens or cans) is bound to be of inferior quality, but some butcher shops sells passable (if not better) stocks. If you happen across one, try it out to see if their stock is worth a damn.

It seems to me, though, that some flavors can only emerge with time. There remain few shortcuts by which to imitate the depth and complexity of a sauce or soup made with a slow-simmered, lovingly tended stock.