The thing is, there is no stock answer to the stock question.  Stock is a many faceted beast and there are a bazillion and three ways to make it and none of them are wrong.  That’s why this post is not in my recipes section, because it is a discussion…a conversation perhaps, on stock and it’s endless facets.

Stock.  You don’t “need” it for anything really, but when you’ve got it you use it for everything.  It’s the basis of soups, gravy, jus, stew, and can be put in just about any hot wet food – curries, pasta sauces, noodley dishes, pies, etc.  There isn’t much I can think of where a bit of stock doesn’t go a long way.

Many years ago a chef friend of mine started working for a Michelin starred restaurant in Edinburgh where he was on a steep learning curve. We were sitting in our flat having a few bevvies and a herbal jazz cigarette or two when he started telling me how they make stock at this restaurant.  It’s a 36 hour process and he basically told me in real time.  It wasn’t the most exciting conversation we’ve ever had, but 36 hours later I knew a lot about the art of making a good stock.  I’ll try to be more brief here, but it doesn’t have to take 36 hours to make either.

It’s worth having a think about what you might use your stock for and flavour it accordingly – I often make fairly generic stocks that will go with just about anything, but a deeper darker fuller flavour would go well with beef or lamb, or in curry, etc but you might want something a little lighter and fresher for chicken dishes or risottos, or fish dishes.  You may be making your stock for a specific meal, if it’s something Asian or Indian maybe add some spices or heat, perhaps some sweetness or soy.  If it’s French maybe some vino, or a good British stew or pie could always benefit a can of stout or beer.

Meat and Veg

The main ingredient in stock is bones – lots and lots of bones.  So we’re off to a good start with a cheap, if not free, ingredient that you can get from your butcher.  I often buy chicken thighs with the skin on and the bone in, so whenever I do a dish with filleted thigh I just chuck the skin and bones in a bag in the freezer and when I have enough I make a stock.  I used to just buy whole chickens and butcher them saving the carcass for stock and using the meat for different dishes through the week. Or if you’re doing a whole roast chicken, keep the leftovers.  A lot of supermarkets do raw chicken carcasses too. For beef or lamb bones I normally go to the butcher – ox tail is good and you get a bit of meat with them you can pick out later and make something delicious with, but any bones really.

Some people use the bones raw but the real secret is to roast them. I get a big tray, chop a couple onions in half (no need to peel), scatter a load of garlic bulbs through it (no need to peel), take all my leftover veg that needs using and chop it into big chunks, douse with a little olive oil and roast it hard.  My chef pal used to smear tomato puree over the bones too which gives a deeper flavoured roast but you can throw in some random ingredients too – whole peppercorns are always good, any old woody herbs you have, quartered lemons go well with a lighter stock, whole chillis and limes with an Asian or even Mexican stock, whole spices such as cinnamon or star anise, both of which go well in Indian dishes, but would also enhance the flavour of beef stocks especially, without necessarily making them “Indian”.  You can of course just use meat bones and no veg, or leave the meat out altogether for a veggie stock, but roast it hard and deep and get lots of colour without burning because colour means caramelisation and caramelisation means flavour. To better achieve this, try and spread your ingredients out as thinly as possible in a big roasting tin and DON’T USE SALT!  Salt draws out the moisture and stops the browning process.

Once that’s done you need to impart all this flavour to liquid- you can just empty everything into a big saucepan and cover it with water, but again – think about the flavour.  If you’re planning to use beer or wine, get that boiling in an empty pan for a few minutes to burn the booze off and then put your roasted goodies in.  You might want to fry some spices first or some onion and garlic (as they have a different flavour when fried instead of roasted).  Add water until your roasted loveliness is covered, bring to a simmer, skim the scum off the top if you get any, cover with a lid so it’s just bubbling…and wait.  In fact, don’t wait, go off and do something else.  The absolute minimum you should leave it is a couple of hours, but there have been many occasions when I will leave this on the stove all week – just switching it on when I get in from work and off again when I go to bed, topping up with water as necessary.  It’s not a bad idea to allow your stock to go cold at some point and any fat will solidify and rise to the top so you can just pick it off.  Once you’re happy, strain it through a colander, sieve or cheesecloth depending on how fussy you want to be.  And there you have an awesome stock…but wait!  There’s more…

Seafood

Go into any fishmongers and you can get fish heads.  Or, as with the chicken, if you ever buy whole fish, keep all the left over bones and bits and pieces.  You can just do the same kind of thing as above, but in general you don’t need to leave fishy stocks for so long.  Whenever I buy prawns however I always buy them with the shell on because it protects them during the cooking process, but if I’m making a dish where the prawns should be naked (spaghetti marinara, prawn ravioli, prawn risotto, etc, etc) I still buy them with the shell on, peel them, and fry the shells in a pan with maybe a little garlic, white wine, tomato puree, or even just water and make a very quick stock – you can do this in 20 minutes or so and it will add an extra dimension to your dish – pour it in you marinara sauce, cook your risotto rice, or use as a broth to pour over your prawn ravioli – nom nom.

What Next?

So you’ve got a bucket load of beautifully flavoured liquid loveliness – what you gonna do with it, huh?  Unless you’ve got all week, I’ll not sit here and spell it all out for you, but here’s some pointers.

If you don’t want to use your stock straight away, you can freeze it – top tip, pour it in a bag, sit the bag in a bowl in the freezer, then remove the bowl and you’re not using up all your tupperware and it takes up less room.  If you just want to use your stock like stock cubes, freeze them in an ice cube tray or bag and pop them out when you need them.

Soup – obviously.  Classic chicken soup made from a chicken stock , ya just can’t beat it.  But no matter what soup you’re making, a couple of ladles of stock will go a long way.

Gravies are another obvious one, reduce your stock down to intensify the flavour and thicken slightly, maybe a little cornflour, or if you’re a fancy chef that needs a silky finish at the expense of a coronary, stir in half a block of butter (completely unnecessary in my book).  Gravy is always good with a little something in it too – in a deep dark rich beefy gravy, I like a teaspoon of strawberry or raspberry jam stirred in for a bit of fruity sweetness cutting through it, or chicken gravy might have a little dijon mustard to give it an extra note…so many possibilities…go wild.

As I said before, just about any hot wet food improves with a ladle of your stock, but think further than curries and pasta sauces – if you’re making a rue or a white or cheese sauce, substitute half the milk for stock; wet a stir fry at the end just to finish it off; boil noodles in it, in fact I boil just about anything in it when it’s sitting on my stove for a week – that’s how restaurants get those lovely broths and thick pasta water, they use the water that has been used all day boiling up all the good stuff.

You can also create stocks on the fly – if you are making a curry or a stew, you’d usually use a cheaper piece of beef or lamb and cook it for an hour or two to tenderise it.  If it’s got bones, leave them in and they will flavour the sauce so much more.  Some of the best Asian curries are  made with chicken thighs that they just chop up with the bone in – there’s a reason they leave the bone in, and you can taste it!

Phew – that’s a long post and I could go on and on (like my chef mate did that night), but hopefully we’ve gone a little way to answering the stock question with some non-stock answers.  Let me know your tips and tricks – I can never have too many!