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Entries from Talk tagged with 'stock'
French Laundry Veal Stock!
Blame my broken television set, or the holiday weekend with all immediate family out of town, but whatever the reason I finally made Thomas Keller's veal stock from "The French Laundry Cookbook." It's nearly 9:00 p.m. Sunday night, and that sucker is done! I am so excited, it's pathetic. It took most of the weekend, and hey, my new gym regimen suffered (how could I work out when I had to constantly skim, reduce, strain, and repeat?), but what's left in the pot is gorgeous, flavorful mahogany-colored culinary gold.
Now, having patted myself on the back, I have to confess that I did not use Chef Keller's full complement of 10 pounds veal bones because I didn't have that many in the freezer, but I cut back other ingredients accordingly. And believe me, fewer veal bones does not translate into shorter cook times, except possibly at the very, very end. Overall, we're talking about 24 hours of dedicated stove time.
Anyway, tomorrow I freeze the stock, probably in ice cube trays, and would welcome suggestions from Serious Eats contributors about what to use it for first. Thanks in advance, from someone who feels glued to her kitchen floor.
slow cooker stock
Thanks so much to all who wrote about chicken stock in the slow cooker...such a great idea. A "why didn't I think of that idea". I did a chicken stock yesterday, 10 hours in the slow cooker and then strained and simmered on the stove for another 1.5 hours to reduce. I had a very nice gelatinous 8 cups of stock this am. Currently in my mini muffin tins freezing.
I have some shrimp shells and lobster legs in the slow cooker now, hopefully I can do a seafood stock the same way.
Freezing stock
I've got a good bit of beef stock to store (over a gallon), and I need a good way to freeze it that's also convenient for use later (as in I don't want to have to unfreeze the whole batch whenever I want some, but also don't want to saw off a giant block of ice). I was thinking dividing it up between lots of gladware-type containers, but I was wondering if anyone knew of anything that worked better and was easier to do?
Do you make your own stock or do you cheat a little?
I always want to make my own stock; it is supremely superior to canned or box o' broth, but I normally don't have the time and often can't get the bones from the butcher. When you make stock, whose recipe/process do you use? I've used several and I've determined the next batch will be Michael Ruhlman's. I used my own stock for the last batch of risotto I made and it was just superb, if I don't say so myself!
There have been comparisons done by CI and FC recently that recommend Swanson as the top preferred commercial broth/stock. I usually get the case of it at Costco to have handy when I don't have homemade. I don't have any big complaints with it, but tried Trader Joe's chix broth in a box and didn't like it one bit.
Any tips you'd like to pass along for making stock?
