David Scheidt said:The wrote:
:Thanks to all who replied. I make my stock according to Wolfgang
:Puck's stock recipe which I saw on TV a couple of years ago. He made
:the point I remember of saying it was essential to scoop off the
:initial scum which arrives when the chicken bones finally come to the
:boil (there are no vegetables or herbs in at this time). I use one of
:those Chinese round flattish sieve things.
: If I brought the initial stockpot of chicken bones in cold water
:slowly it would take forever!
You'd get better results, though. Slow heating gives the soluable or
partly soluable proteins time to escape the meat solids. That means
they coagulate into bigger clumps, which are much easier to skim off.
Well thank you for that. It may well be that when I saw the original
program this was what had occurred. I read a lot about cookery - and
especially about foundation things like stocks and sauces, and even my
small Escoffier Stocks & Sauces book (which I use quite a lot)
doesn't tell me this. It does make sense though.
There is one thing I do though: and that is I put the onion skins
into the stock along with the onions - and this gives a nice deep
colour and deeper flavour. If you are interested, my recipe is for 2
chicken carcases and one roughly chopped brown onion including the
skin, 2 chopped med. carrots, the green leafy part of one leek,two
stalks of celery chopped, a few brown mushrooms - if I have them on
hand - 3 or 4 medium tomatoes, a curl or two of lemon zest, two stalks
of fresh thyme (I am lucky to have this in my garden all year round!),
two fresh bay leaves (and I have that as well!) 6 peppercorns and one
clove peeled garlic. My stockpot is is about 15 inches high - well
it was purchased as a pot to boil pasta in!
This recipe yields very concentrated strong stock to which I can add
the same quantity of water when I want to make soup or whatever. It
is wonderfully flavourful in risotto dishes - as you can imagine.
Cheers - and good cooking!
The Golfer's Wife
