Stock.

Stock. It's the foundation of all great cooking, IMHO. There are some Italians out there who'd tell you differently, that my approach is too French, and thus, too heavy. Stock, in their opinion, should never come from seafood, or veal, or beef, only chicken or vegetables, if you absolutely MUST have stock.

*yawn*

While I do appreciate that kind of puritanical approach, veal stock is what I imagine God wakes up to in the morning instead of our pitiful mortal attempts to fill that void with "coffee".

Stock NEEDS to be demystified for everyone, everywhere; essentially, it boils down (ha! get it?!?) to making meat tea. That's all you're doing, really.

A lot of old textbooks call for the addition of mirepoix to the bones (mirepoix = 2 parts onion, 1 part each carrot and celery), but I don't use them anymore. Nor do I use tomato paste, wine, herbs, and especially not peppercorns. I only use bones and water. That's it. That's all it needs. It's FAR cleaner that way. Celery and peppercorns only taste bitter when the stock is reduced. Also, a heretical step in the process I'm sure, I don't roast my bones in most cases. Chefs and cooks everywhere will turn up their noses at that, but it fucks up the collagen and elastin extraction from the pores of the bones. That lovely brown colour doesn't need to be there for a dense rich sauce, and besides, a "white" veal stock (considered "white" because there was no roasting of the bones), upon reduction, ends up pretty brown. You can reduce some red wine and shallots to further bump up the flavour/colour, so don't worry about roasting veal or beef bones.

Chicken bones, duck, and lobster shells? Different story. You can roast or not roast, just expect differing levels of of collagen extraction from the roasted results

A recipe:

Bones (veal, beef, or venison)

Enough spring water to cover by three(3) inches

Bring to boil as quickly as you can, then drop to 2 on an electric stove, super low flame on gas, for roughly ten hours, up to a full day. Skim, skim, skim. (skimming the froth that rises to the top is integral. It's all the blood and impurities that lurk inside the bones, and they do NOT taste good. So skim the surface of your stock periodically as you would an aquarium. If you wouldn't feed that nasty shit to your mother, why would you or anyone else want to consume it?) Strain, and now you have instant culinary napalm to light your cooking on FIRE.

If you use chicken or duck bones, halve the cooking time. Lobster shells? 45 minutes to an hour.

I CANNOT stress the importance of making your own stock. Not only is it economical, freezes well, and is exceptionally easy, but your cooking will never reach the heights afforded it by the possibilities out there, simply waiting to be exploited by those who choose not to be lazy.

luv,

s