7 Simple Tricks to Irresistible Stock
There are as many way to make chicken stock as there are to skin a cat. But I prefer making stock. And this is how I do it.
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I’m a routine girl.
I deep clean my bathroom on Sundays, I have a cocktail at 5:30, I workout in the morning. I tried to institute “Flower Fridays” with my ex, whereby he would bring me flowers every Friday. It didn’t take, and so you can now understand why he is my ex.
I also have Stock Saturdays. At least during the cold months when I go through a few litres of stock a week for soups, sauces, and stews.
The thing about stock is that it really is very easy – you literally just throw stuff in a pot, cover it with water, and let it gently bubble away for a few hours.
However, to make really good stock there are a few subtle tricks we need to observe.
It took me a while to figure these tricks out. As no woman is an island, I learned from James Peterson’s invaluable book Sauces, along with a cooking class or two, and my good friend, Chef Kyle McClure.
I distinctly remember texting Kyle a photo of my stock, which was sitting on my counter quickly cooling into a gelatinous blob. “Is this normal?” I wrote, slightly worried. He responded with a high five emoji and an enthusiastic endorsement gushing with profanities. The PG version is he told me it looked really good. I was going to screen shot our WhatsApp convo, but I think it would get me kicked off this platform, so I wisely though the better of it. For a fun literary exercise, you can imagine the expletives and where they would be placed in the sentence. Be creative now. There needs to be at least five to truly capture Kyle’s poetic mastery of the cuss.
Today I’m sharing the recipe for the swear-inspiring stock. This is a simple white chicken stock, one of my kitchen MVP’s. I use it in risotto (head’s up: next week I’m sharing my most addictive risotto recipe to wow a crowd), it stars in my favourite coq au vin, and, is the base of nearly all my sauces and gravies.
I always have at least three litres, divided into handy, 500ml containers, in my freezer. Proper stock is one of my must-have ingredients.
Of course, you can make brown stock, which is delicious, but requires the extra step of roasting the bones. Beef, fish, and veggie stock all basically start off the same, but diverge in different routes along the way. Perhaps we will discuss these stocks another time, let me know if that interests you.
Below, I’ve outlined my seven crucial tips to achieving restaurant-worthy stock. Don’t worry: these simple tricks are not complicated cheffy things, these are stunningly basic swaps – instead of this do that kind of stuff – to maximize flavour.
But first it may help to understand what is a stock, and what is a broth.