Taking Stock

When the weather 'round these parts starts getting cooler, we make soup and stew and chili and all kinds of comfort foods.

One of the primary components of soup is a good stock.

These days, you can buy decent stock in aseptic cartons at the grocery store, but if you're properly motivated, you can make it yourself.

Me, I've been fairly motivated, but I didn't have the appropriate equipment to try Alton Brown's recipe, although I've had the requisite chicken carcasses, vegetables, and herbs in the house at various points this year. 

My mother, generous soul that she is, offered me the loan of her stockpot so I could actually clear the carcasses out of my freezer and turn them into stock.

Shopping List

• fresh parsley
• fresh thyme

I already had the 4lbs of chicken carcasses, leek, onion, carrots, and celery ribs prepped in the freezer and I always have bay leaves and peppercorns in the pantry.

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

This is very easy, but you do absolutely need the correct size stockpot. AB calls for a 12qt pot for stock-making, which is the size I borrowed from Mom. (My largest stockpot is 5qt.)

Collecting the carcasses is also time-consuming, but the munchkin had taken quite well to roast chicken for dinner over the last year, so I had plenty.

My sister could certainly do this if she put her mind to it.

Specialty equipment required?

Yes. 

In addition to the stockpot, you need a strainer - to remove the solids from your stock - and a smaller stockpot or large bowl to hold the stock you make. (Wouldn't want your 12 hours' work to literally go down the drain, would you?)

It's also suggested that a vegetable steamer be used to help keep the vegetables and chicken parts submerged, though I don't know if this is completely necessary. It is quite helpful, though.

Rating?

Well, this is kind of sticky. 

It's not an every day or even an every week rotation type of recipe, but that's mostly because I haven't got chicken parts every day. I've got several quarts of stock in my freezer, which should get me through the winter without having to buy box stock (yay!) but haven't had occasion to make soup yet.

I did use some of it in a slow-cooker pulled pork recipe (16oz frozen stock, 1-2 thinly sliced onions, 2lbs bone-in pork shoulder, 1c apple cider; cook on LOW for 8-10hrs, drain, pull, mix with favorite BBQ sauce & serve) and it turned out nicely, so that portion of this batch was a win.

We'll see how it goes as the season progresses. 

Recipe Review: Ted Allen's Belgian Beef Stew

How easy was the recipe to follow? 

Ted Allen's recipes in In My Kitchen are very clearly written, so I found this one very easy to follow. The skill level required for the steps is a little beyond a beginning home cook, but for someone who's self-described as "competent," it wasn't that bad.

I do recommend doing all your prep work before you turn on the flame, so you have mise en place - which is a fancy way to say "everything ready to go beforehand." 

I also recommend photocopying the pages on which the recipe appears so you don't have to flip back-and-forth between steps to check an ingredient amount with greasy or salty hands - it ended up starting on the odd-numbered page and finishing on the reverse, which I found a little distracting. (It's my preference to tape recipes above my work area so I don't need to turn my back on an active stove to check the next step.)

Aside from that, the recipe came together more quickly than I'd anticipated - I allowed myself 45 minutes for prep and stovetop cooking before placing the Dutch oven into the heated oven, but I didn't need it. 

Does it require specialty equipment that I don't always have accessible? 

Yes and no - it requires a Dutch oven, which I have, but don't use often enough. It's not as difficult for me to access as my food processors, coffee grinder, or blender.

On the plus side, it's great to have another dish I can use my lovely Le Creuset enameled cast iron to cook!

How did my husband & daughter enjoy it?

This is also a mixed bag.

My husband enjoyed it, but the recipe as written calls for 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, so it was a bit too spicy for our palates.

The kid tried it, which was great, but she was very upset by the strength of the cayenne. (Luckily, I still had whole milk in the house!)

This kind of makes me wonder if it's a misprint; we want to make it again, reducing the amount of cayenne or substituting another spice. I was thinking that smoked paprika might be complementary to the other flavors in the dish.

Was it too much work to add to my regular rotation? 

Again, a mixed bag.
It's too much work for an everyday weeknight meal, but it would be nice to have as a Sunday treat every now and again.




Verdict: Will make again, with noted substitution of smoked paprika for cayenne.

Which Recipe Did I Pick?

On Wednesday (14 January 2015), I'll tackle my first new-to-me recipe, "Belgian Beef Stew (with beer, onions, and herb spaetzle)"

It comes from Ted Allen's cookbook, In My Kitchen: 100 Recipes and Discoveries for Passionate Cooks.

Our copy is personalized from Mr. Allen himself, who we met at our local Barnes & Noble during the summer of 2012. 

Even if you don't cook, you'll notice that the photographs are lovely, the recipes thorough and well-written (no surprise - one of the first non "30-minute" recipes I ever attempted was a Ted Allen recipe for a puffy oven-baked pancake), and most of them aren't out of reach for my current skill level.

Sadly, we hadn't taken the time to really sit with the book and flag our "ooh! this looks great!" recipes because we were both working full-time, keeping rotten hours, and, well, the kid was only 2. 

Ted Allen's book was calling my name this week. I love him on TV, really appreciated the time and patience he took with our family (how many TV personalities will stay patient with a 2-year-old?), and have been itching to try these recipes since bringing this gorgeous book home.

Because it's supposed to remain rather chilly here this week (in the 30's F), I wanted to do a lot of comfort-food recipes this week. (Tonight's dinner, for example, is "AB mac-and-cheese," while tomorrow will be slow-cooker chicken & dumplings.)

This all played into selecting a variation on beef stew - hearty, comforting, and not too fussy. (It's basically a sear-and-braise recipe.)

Today was my main shopping day - picking up stew beef, beef stock, and onions. (I had everything else in the pantry & fridge.)

Tomorrow, while the kid's off at preschool, I'll have time to grab the beer - trying to choose a Belgian or Belgian-style golden ale that suits both my husband's and my palates is going to be a challenge, but I'll happily do it!

SHOPPING LIST

• stew beef (3 lbs)
• beef stock
• onion (1.5 lbs)
• Belgian-style beer (golden ale, lambic, or abbey; I don't particularly care for lambic, so I'm looking at golden ales)