Stock

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Making stock

Stock is a flavoured water. It forms the basis of many dishes, particularly soups and sauces. Stock is prepared by simmering various ingredients in water, including some or all of the following:

Meat

Leftover cooked meat, such as that remaining on poultry carcasses, is often used along with the bones of the bird or joint. Fresh meat makes a superior stock and cuts rich in connective tissue such as shin or shoulder of beef or veal are commonly recommended, either alone or added in lower proportions to the remains of cooked poultry to provide a richer and fresher-tasting stock. Quantities recommended are invariably in the ratio of 1 part fresh meat to 2 parts water. Pork is considered unsuitable for stock due to its greasiness (although 19th century recipes for consomme and traditional aspic invariably included slices of mild ham) and mutton was traditionally avoided due to the difficulty of avoiding the strong tallowy taint imparted from the fat.

Bones 

Veal, beef, and chicken bones are most commonly used. The flavour of the stock comes from the cartilage and connective tissue in the bones. Connective tissue has collagen in it, which gets converted into gelatin that thickens the liquid. Stock made from bones needs to be simmered for longer than stock made from meat (often referred to as broth). Pressure cooking methods shorten the time necessary to extract the flavour from the bones.

Mirepoix

A combination of onions, carrots, celery, and sometimes other vegetables. Often the less desirable parts of the vegetables (such as carrot skins and celery ends) are used since they will not be eaten.

Herbs and spices

The herbs and spices used depend on availability and local traditions. In classical cuisine, the use of a bouquet garni (or bundle of herbs) consisting of parsley, bay leaves, a sprig of thyme, and possibly other herbs, is common. This is often placed in a sachet to make it easier to remove once the stock is cooked.

Broth is very similar to stock, and often the terms are used interchangeably. Usually, broth refers to the finished product, while stock is used as an ingredient (thus stock may become broth). Other times, broth is used to refer to a liquid made in the same way as stock, but meat is substituted for bones. However, with some stock/broth made from vegetables and some made from both bones and meat, this cannot be considered a hard-and-fast rule.

Today, ready-made stock and stock cubes consisting of dried, compressed stock ingredients are readily available. These are commonly known as bouillon cubes (or oxo cubes, after a common brand of stock cube sold in Britain) or cooking base.

Types

• Fond brun, or brown stock. The brown color is achieved by roasting the bones and mirepoix. This also adds a rich, full flavour. Veal bones are the most common type used in a fond brun. Tomato paste is often added (sometimes thinned tomato paste is painted onto the roasting bones). The acid in the paste helps break down the connective tissue helping accelerating the formation of gelatin, as well as giving color to the stock.
• Fond blanc, or white stock, is made by using raw bones and white mirepoix. Chicken bones are the most common for fond blanc.
• Fish stock is made with fish bones and finely chopped mirepoix. Fish stock should be cooked for 30–45 minutes—cooking any longer spoils the flavour. Concentrated fish stock is called "fish fumet." In Japanese cooking, a fish and kelp stock called dashi is made by briefly (3–5 minutes) cooking skipjack tuna (bonito) flakes called katsuobushi in nearly boiling water.
• Chicken stock should be cooked for 3–4 hours.
• Veal stock should be cooked anywhere from 8 hours.
• Lamb stock should be cooked for 5 hours. To make a lamb jus, start with a chicken stock and roasted lamb necks and bones.
• Jus is a rich, lightly reduced stock used as a sauce for roasted meats. Many of these are started by deglazing the roasting pan, then reducing to achieve the rich flavour desired.
• Ham stock, common in Cajun cooking, is made from ham hocks.
• Prawn stock is made from boiling prawn shells. It is used in Southeast Asian dishes such as laksa.
• Vegetable stock is made only of vegetables. It is common today.
• Master stock is a special Chinese stock used primarily for poaching meats, flavoured with soy sauce, sugar, ginger, garlic, and other aromatics.
• Glace viande is stock made from bones, usually from veal, that is highly concentrated by reduction.

Preparing stock

A few basic rules are commonly prescribed for preparing stock:

• The stock ingredients are simmered starting with cold water. This promotes the extraction of collagen, which may be sealed in by hot water.
• Stocks are simmered gently, with bubbles just breaking the surface, and not boiled. If a stock is boiled, it will be cloudy.
• Salt is usually not added to a stock, as this causes it to become too salty, since most stocks are reduced to make soups and sauces.
• Meat is added to a stock before vegetables, and the "scum" that rises to the surface is skimmed off before further ingredients are added.

Bibliography

• Escoffier, Auguste (1903). Le Guide culinaire. Aide mémoire de cuisine pratique. Paris, France: Flammarion. 
• Escoffier, A (1941). The Escoffier Cook Book. New York, NY, USA: Crown Publishers. 
• Fannie Merritt Farmer (1896). The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Boston, MA, USA: Little, Brown and Company. 
• Beck, Simone; Louisette Bertholle; Julia Child (1961). Mastering the Art of French Cooking. New York, NY, USA: Alfred A. Knopf. 

External links

• Free Culinary School Podcast Episode 2 A podcast episode that talks in detail about how to make a great culinary stock.
• White stock Instructions and discussion of stock making and why things are done that way.