Tag Archives: stock

Stock that’s clear

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It’s very seldom that you achieve the platonic ideal of stock. There is an idea of a clear, golden liquid that conveys many layered savoury depths, and brings a touch of magic wherever you use it,

Reams of cookery writers have written hymns to the power of stock. Anyone trained in the traditions of French cooking, from Joel Robuchon to Michael Ruhlman, will have learnt all about stock as the absolute foundation of French cuisine, the essential component of all meat cookery at least. But even home cooks like Nigella Lawson are converts to this idea.

I fall somewhere in between. I hate food waste, so the idea of extracting every last drop of flavour and nourishment from a chicken carcass really appeals to me. I follow Nigella’s suggestion of freezing chicken bones, and when I have two or three chickens worth, I put them all in a large pot of cold water, bring it to the boil, simmer for about an hour and a half, then add chopped onions, carrots, a stick or two of celery, a few peppercorns and bits of thyme and parsley if I have them around, and simmer for a further hour.

What this produces is fairly flavourful and good for soups and risottos. But it’s not what you think of as beautiful stock – the clear, golden liquid you might see in a consomme or tortellini in brodo.

I know that you should keep stock bubbling very slowly, but the importance of how slow this should be didn’t really sink in until I made ham stock for Heston’s pea and ham soup, using the recipe in Heston Blumenthal at Home. The recipe suggests that you cover the ham with water, add onions, carrots and leeks, bring to a simmer, then place in an 85C oven for 5 hours. This very slow, long cooking produces a liquid that stays well below boiling for the entire duration but still extracts deep flavours.

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When I took the ham out of the oven after this 5 hour stint, the liquid was so clear I could see all the way to the bottom of the pot. It helped that, to ensure the gammon wasn’t too salty, I had brought it to the boil, poured the water away, and then cover it with fresh water to make the stock. This helped remove the scum and bits of floating protein that will always accumulate when you boil raw meat.

A few days later, I rescued the bones from two especially fat pheasants we ate pot-roasted for New Year’s Eve from the freezer, and made stock from them. After the ham experience, I took the lid off, and after bringing it to the boil, kept the heat as low as possible. You can see the cooking in the (rather noisy) video below. It was barely possible to see a single bubble over the course of a minute. The reward for this was a beautiful, clear golden stock. I think this calls for a risotto.

Using stock

To really show off your stock, make risotto – this really captures the flavour you’ve painstakingly brought in. It also makes great soups (although water will almost always do, especially for vegetable soups), provides liquid for curries, gravy, bolognese sauces. If you’re going to make stock regularly (and if you eat roast chicken, it’s not difficult), don’t be precious about it. Use it whenever you see the opportunity. It’s silly to wait for a perfect risotto to use your stock, when you could use it to improve things, even just a little, throughout the week.

Making good stock

  • You don’t need the very best ingredients, but neither should you use only compost materials. Make sure the vegetables are clean, and that most of the skin and fat have been removed from the bones.
  • Stock is all about long and slow. Doing this in the oven is easier, but requires you to have an ovenproof pot with a lid big enough to make this work. Chicken bones want at least two hours, preferably three.
  • Either keep the vegetables in large pieces, and add them at the start, or chop them into chunks and add to the pot with an hour to go.
  • Strain through a fine sieve, or layer of damp cheesecloth to remove any particles. This also means you can add herbs and peppercorns straight to the pot without tieing them into a bundle.
  • Don’t season your stock. You might want to reduce it, so only add salt when you use the stock, not when you make it.
  • Reducing the stock will concentrate the flavour and make it easier to store. After you have strained it, pour back into a clean pot and boil fast to drive off water.
  • Stock freezes really well – it’s the best way to store it. Use either strong freezer bags, or rigid takeaway soup containers. With freezer bags, you can easily get small holes once the bag is frozen, so be sure to defrost it in a container, in case the bag leaks.

Parsnip Risotto with Parsnip crisps


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Originally uploaded by louise_marston.

I quite like making stock; when I’ve paid £13 for a chicken, it makes me feel considerably more virtuous to know that not a drop of chickeny-goodness has gone to waste. However, although I diligently make, strain, reduce and store my stock, I’m often at a loss for the best way to show it off. It seems a waste of all that effort to just bung it into a curry or sauce. Which is why I find myself turning to risotto again and again when I have chicken stock in the house.

I’ve seen copies of Jamie’s Italy in various people’s houses over the past few months and have resisted buying, even though it looks very good, as I already own Marcella Hazan’s The Essentials of Classical Italian Cooking and Giorgio Locatelli’s Made in Italy: Food and Stories. Browsing through other people’s copies, however, (and I am certainly not above this – if I’m in your house, no cookbook is safe) a couple of unusual recipes struck me, namely recipes for a parsnip risotto and an artichoke one. The parsnip one particularly intrigued me; the idea of the savoury stock and the sweet, earthy parsnips seemed particularly appealing. Although I didn’t have the echt Jamie version to work from, I used my usual risotto tactics, following along with Giorgio to make sure I got the technique right. The parsnip crisps occurred to me at the last minute; I’ve been buying rather a lot of them in Pret recently.

Parsnip Risotto with Parsnip Crisps

1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 small parsnips
1 tbsp butter plus 1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 glass white wine
500 ml chicken stock
1/2 cup risotto rice (arborio, carnaroli or vialone nano)
1/2 tsp thyme
2-3 tbsp grated parmesan

Finely slice half of one of the parsnips, and finely dice the rest. Heat the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan or saute pan and soften the onions. Once the onions have started to go translucent, add the diced parsnips and cook together with the onions until their almost browning. Stir in the rice, and fry for 2-3 minutes to toast the rice. Add the white wine and stir until it’s all absorbed, then start to add the chicken stock a little at a time. Stir between additions, and start to taste the rice after about 10-15 minutes. When the grains only have a little hardness left, add the chopped thyme, then keep adding stock and stirring until the grains yield all the way through. In between the stirring, heat a small frying pan and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (not the good stuff). Add the sliced parsnip and fry until they are brown and crisp. Remove to a plate lined with kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil, and sprinkle with a little salt.
Once the risotto is done, take the pan off the heat and let stand while you slice off another piece of cold butter and grate the parmesan. Stir these in then serve, with a little extra grated parmesan, the parsnip crisps and a little more thyme on top.

Cook’s notes: I used the gravy from making Muriel’s chicken as well as the stock for this. As this was already flavoured with thyme, lemon and garlic, it was a little too much for the dish, and just the plain chicken stock would have been better. The dish could also have stood a little more wine to add a bit of acidity to the earthiness and sweetness of the parsnips.