I suspect that almost no one makes stocks at home any more, which is a real shame, since it can bring a lot of flavor to a meal. Even better, it brings that flavor with few calories and virtually no fat. In virtually any savory dish, you can substitute stock for water, and whatever you are making will taste better. You can also replace the dairy in your mashed potatoes with a nice chicken or vegetable stock, and the results will not disappoint.
The complaint I hear about stock making is that it takes too long. Well, if you don’t happen to have eight to ten hours to slowly simmer whole beef bones that you painstakingly browned in the oven, painting with tomato puree (that you made earlier from your own garden-grown heirloom tomatoes), then you clearly don’t have your priorities straight.
Yeah, I don’t have the time or money to do that, either, so my solution is to make a vegetable stock. It only takes about an hour, contains no animal products whatsoever (impress that cute vegan in your life), and brings a lot of flavor to the party. Granted, you cannot extract gelatin from a carrot, so the veggie stock lacks a certain…unctuousness…but that can always be fixed in a number of ways.
The key to a good veggie stock? Use seasonal vegetables. Asparagus in season? Toss some in. Mushrooms? Great, use’em. The only things to avoid, generally, are the green leafy vegetables (sulfide creation, aka the stinky sock smell) and tomatoes (that would be a tomato sauce).
Here’s my basic recipe for a veggie stock, as you can see, it is pretty simple, there are only a few critical parts that I don’t deviate from:
2 parts onion (or leek or shallot or any combination)
1 part carrots
1 part celery
1-2 cloves garlic (I like garlic, use your own taste)
~1/2 part of whatever vegetables I feel are appropriate (parsnip, rutabaga, asparagus, sweet potato, etc).
1 gallon of water
sachet (bay leaf, sprig of thyme, 10 or so parsley stems, maybe a clove; usually they are wrapped in cheesecloth and submerged, but in an effort to save money, I found a reusable one – they make a variety of them).
I chop the veggies in to small, uniform pieces, and sweat them in a little olive oil under low heat until the onions are translucent. Add the water, bring the whole thing to a boil then dial back the heat. I let it simmer for about 40 minutes, then I strain it. The stock can hold for months if frozen, and I’m you could probably hold it for three or four days in the refrigerator (animal-based stocks seem to be able to keep longer, as the high gelatin found in those stocks keep microbes from penetrating. The veggie stock doesn’t have that gelatin, so may not keep as long – sources available on request).
4/6/09
GIGO
Apologies to my loyal reader, deadlines loomed, apathy reigned.
But I’m back, I’m sure your heart is all atwitter.
Garbage In Garbage Out – GIGO – was one of those acronyms that I remember being tossed about in the early days of personal computing. I think it first heard it when I was taking a PASCAL class, if that dates it at all, but I don’t hear it as much anymore with regards to software.
What the hell does that have to do with food? Well, the making of stocks, for one, something that has been on my mind a lot lately.
The French word for stock is fond which shares its roots with the English word Foundation. The stock is the basis for a whole range of “small sauces,” and it is safe to say that western cuisine would be a radically different thing were it not for the creation and use of stocks. Sauces may not be all the rage today, but they underpin the French Culinary Tradition, and, like it or not, that underpins most of the Western Culinary Tradition (and yes, I am aware of the role of the Medici’s, thank you very much).
Anyway, in the French Tradition, if you make a bad stock, virtually everything that follows will be bad, since it is tainted by that stock. Your braising liquid, the liquid your vegetables were blanched in, the foundation for the sauce that ties it all together, all use that crappy stock, and thus, they too are crappy.
The key to a good stock? Use good ingredients. Don’t throw in scraps that you wouldn’t eat yourself (some mushroom stems being an exception), don’t use old veggies, rancid bones or bad water. The quality of what you start the process with will totally define the quality of the end product. If you can produce a good stock, then all of those dishes that use that stock are lifted by it, rather than oppressed by it. But if you put garbage into it, you get garbage out of it.
I suppose that to some extent, GIGO applies to all cooking, but stocks are different somehow. I suppose it is because they are the foundation of so much more.
More on stocks tomorrow.
But I’m back, I’m sure your heart is all atwitter.
Garbage In Garbage Out – GIGO – was one of those acronyms that I remember being tossed about in the early days of personal computing. I think it first heard it when I was taking a PASCAL class, if that dates it at all, but I don’t hear it as much anymore with regards to software.
What the hell does that have to do with food? Well, the making of stocks, for one, something that has been on my mind a lot lately.
The French word for stock is fond which shares its roots with the English word Foundation. The stock is the basis for a whole range of “small sauces,” and it is safe to say that western cuisine would be a radically different thing were it not for the creation and use of stocks. Sauces may not be all the rage today, but they underpin the French Culinary Tradition, and, like it or not, that underpins most of the Western Culinary Tradition (and yes, I am aware of the role of the Medici’s, thank you very much).
Anyway, in the French Tradition, if you make a bad stock, virtually everything that follows will be bad, since it is tainted by that stock. Your braising liquid, the liquid your vegetables were blanched in, the foundation for the sauce that ties it all together, all use that crappy stock, and thus, they too are crappy.
The key to a good stock? Use good ingredients. Don’t throw in scraps that you wouldn’t eat yourself (some mushroom stems being an exception), don’t use old veggies, rancid bones or bad water. The quality of what you start the process with will totally define the quality of the end product. If you can produce a good stock, then all of those dishes that use that stock are lifted by it, rather than oppressed by it. But if you put garbage into it, you get garbage out of it.
I suppose that to some extent, GIGO applies to all cooking, but stocks are different somehow. I suppose it is because they are the foundation of so much more.
More on stocks tomorrow.
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