Recipe How to Make a Stock

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I didn’t realize how wonderful it is to make your own stock. Besides adding a fantastic depth of flavor to whatever you use it for, stocks are easy to make and significantly cheaper than anything you can buy from the supermarket. All it will cost you is the price of a carrot, a piece of celery, half an onion, water, and seasonings for a basic stock.

With the foundation of a basic stock, you can customize the stock to be any kind of stock you want:

• Add shrimp shells to make a shrimp stock.
• Add a leftover chicken carcass (bones, meat, etc) to make a chicken stock.
• Add the leftover parts of beef bones, meat, etc) to make a beef stock.
• Add the remains of pork ribs to make a pork stock (this has become a natural next step for me, rather than throwing them out)
• Add the scrapings from the gills of a portabella mushroom to make a mushroom stock.
• Best of all, you can leave out salt completely if you need to control your sodium intake, and make it fat-free if you trim the things you put in the pot well enough first.

Ingredients

1 carrot, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
6 cups water
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 tablespoon kosher salt
other seasonings at your discretion (I suggest using the basic seasonings I list here first, but experimentation is always encouraged)

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir to make sure salt and seasonings are blended. If a specialized stock is being made, add those extra ingredients now (example: add chicken bones to the water).

2. Lower the temperature to medium-low and cover pot. Simmer for 4 hours.

3. Pour the stock through a sieve. Discard anything caught in the sieve (it will be tempting to try eating the vegetables, but the flavor has been leeched out of them during the simmer).

4. Allow to cool, then place in containers to refrigerate. Use within 1 week. If a fatty stock was made (like chicken), allow to cool, then skim the fat from the top of the containers and discard (or save for another purpose).

 

[Morning Glory]

Thanks for posting this. Stocks are the foundation of many a great dish.

I made a vegetable stock yesterday which was horrible. It had a very bitter after taste I'm still not sure why - I used: onion, leek, garlic, rosemary, ginger, water. Maybe it was the ginger?

 

[GadgetGuy]

View attachment 31265

I didn’t realize how wonderful it is to make your own stock. Besides adding a fantastic depth of flavor to whatever you use it for, stocks are easy to make and significantly cheaper than anything you can buy from the supermarket. All it will cost you is the price of a carrot, a piece of celery, half an onion, water, and seasonings for a basic stock.

With the foundation of a basic stock, you can customize the stock to be any kind of stock you want:

• Add shrimp shells to make a shrimp stock.
• Add a leftover chicken carcass (bones, meat, etc) to make a chicken stock.
• Add the leftover parts of beef bones, meat, etc) to make a beef stock.
• Add the remains of pork ribs to make a pork stock (this has become a natural next step for me, rather than throwing them out)
• Add the scrapings from the gills of a portabella mushroom to make a mushroom stock.
• Best of all, you can leave out salt completely if you need to control your sodium intake, and make it fat-free if you trim the things you put in the pot well enough first.

Ingredients

1 carrot, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
6 cups water
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 tablespoon kosher salt
other seasonings at your discretion (I suggest using the basic seasonings I list here first, but experimentation is always encouraged)

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients to a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir to make sure salt and seasonings are blended. If a specialized stock is being made, add those extra ingredients now (example: add chicken bones to the water).

2. Lower the temperature to medium-low and cover pot. Simmer for 4 hours.

3. Pour the stock through a sieve. Discard anything caught in the sieve (it will be tempting to try eating the vegetables, but the flavor has been leeched out of them during the simmer).

View attachment 31266

4. Allow to cool, then place in containers to refrigerate. Use within 1 week. If a fatty stock was made (like chicken), allow to cool, then skim the fat from the top of the containers and discard (or save for another purpose).

You can even make veggie stock, just by adding the scraps of baked veggies, a little oil & leaving out any meat!!

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

Thanks for posting this. Stocks are the foundation of many a great dish.

I made a vegetable stock yesterday which was horrible. It had a very bitter after taste I'm still not sure why - I used: onion, leek, garlic, rosemary, ginger, water. Maybe it was the ginger?

I have to believe it was the ginger: everything else you listed is standard stock material. Along those same lines, I wouldn’t put hot peppers into a stock, either. In both cases, the long cook time intensifies the flavor: that’s a good thing for celery and carrots, but not so much here.

 

[Morning Glory]

I have to believe it was the ginger: everything else you listed is standard stock material. Along those same lines, I wouldn’t put hot peppers into a stock, either. In both cases, the long cook time intensifies the flavor: that’s a good thing for celery and carrots, but not so much here.

I reckon you are correct!

 

[TastyReuben]

@morning glory - I was reading about bitter stocks; apparently, it's not unusual.

Common causes:

1. Change in water supply
2. Using a bitter ingredient
3. Change in vegetable supply
4. Change in cooking method (different pot)

One site I read, a professional chef traced it back to his supplier changing the source of his vegetables, and the new ones had been chemically treated.