Stocks ooh beautiful Stocks

Today's a day where i am making stocks, i have a wedding tomorrow night and i need stock to make Fondant potatoes and well as gravy, i also need chicken stock to make pie fillings for our halfway house so i am making chicken stock as well, so i am going to blog both, and as an added bonus i am busy steaming 6 rumps in our rational oven at 63degrees C i put them in the oven yesterday afternoon and will only take them out tomorrow morning so that is a full 36 hours in the oven, they are going to be absolutely amazing, it's based on sous vide, except i do not have a sous vide bath so i steam them in the oven. i rubbed them with a mixture of garlic, black pepper, salt, rosemary and then vacuum packed them.

for those of you who don't know what is really happening, i will explain, you see the different "doneness" of all meats and poultry is based on temperature, so now i am cooking these at a temperature that would give me Medium, so it doesn't matter how long you cook it for as long as the temperature doesn't go higher the meat cannot overcook, but i will have the added benefit of the collagens and connective tissue in the meat breaking down, therefore the meat will become extremely tender!!!!!!.

Now back to the stock making.......Basic Beef Stock
as any chef or cook will tell you the only thing that is going to make one chef's food that much more different to another is his stock, it is the foundation to soo many things in the kitchen from sauces to soups, stews and many more things, so if you have a really good tasting stock, your halfway to a good meal already. Despite popular belief stocks are not cheap to make, and they are time consuming.

Ingredients
2kg Carrots roughly chopped
10 medium Onions roughly chopped
2 bunches of Celery roughly chopped
2 Bunches of Leeks roughly chopped
10 fresh ripe tomatoes
big handfull fresh parsley
small handfull Thyme
small handfull Rosemary
3 star anise
3 heads of garlic cut in half
100g whole black pepper corns
500ml Ghee (clarified butter)
30kg meaty bones

 above is all the vegetables, without the tomatoes chopped up, everything has been washed but nothing has been peeled as this is where alot of the flavour lies.

 All the herbs are separate to the vegetables as you need to start by frying off the vegetables in ghee first, until you get a nice dark roasting colours on them.

 Whilst you are frying off the vegetables roast the meaty bones in the oven at 220 for about 30 minutes until the are nicely coloured

 Once all the meat is done and the vegetables are browned off add the meat the the vegetables along with all the herbs and tomatoes, the reason for not using the tomatoes in the beginning is that they have to much water and will cause the other vegetables to stew instead of frying.

 Now this is something that i have picked up in some of the books that i have been reading lately and that is the fact that when you are making a stock, you are looking at concentrating flavours, but as the stock cook, they let off steam and this in turn is valuable flavour, so i now cover my stock with a heavy duty clear refuse bag, to stop any steam from coming off it, and trust me, it most definitely works!!!

The stock shouldn't boil or simmer, i keep it at a temperature just where there would be bubbles forming on the bottom but it never boils. i will have it like this for a minimum of 24 hours,now the next step is to strain all the liquid off, press the meat to get any juice out that are in them, then place the liquid in the fridge and let it get cold so all the fat sets on the top of the stock, you can then scrape them off. That is basic beef stock, now from here i will melt it down again because it sets into a jelly in fridge, then when it has melted down i will strain it through a Chinios strainer and then again through a muslin cloth, this is to remove any impurities that may be in the stock, then it gets put into 1lt bags and frozen until needed.

Brown Chicken Stock
is very much the same as making beef stock except it doesn't  take as long to make and it doesn't have the tomatoes in it.


Ingredients
1kg Carrots roughly chopped
5 medium Onions roughly chopped
1 bunches of Celery roughly chopped
1 Bunches of Leeks roughly chopped
big handfull fresh parsley
small handfull Thyme
small handfull Oregano
1 head of garlic cut in half
25g whole white pepper corns
150ml Ghee (clarified butter)
2 whole chickens


Now the process is exactly the same as the beef stock, fry off the vegetables first and roast the chicken in the oven, once the vegetables have got nice colour to them add the whole chickens and the rest of the ingredients and cover with water and let it cook out for a minimum of 4 hours, strain it, then place the liquid in the fridge and let it get cold so all the fat sets on the top of the stock, you can then scrape them off. Now from here i will melt it down again because it sets into a jelly in fridge, then when it has melted down i will strain it through a Chinios strainer and then again through a muslin cloth, this is to remove any impurities that may be in the stock, then it gets put into 1lt bags and frozen until needed.

Happy cooking guys, hope this is informative