eGCI Team

Please post your questions relating to this Unit here --->>> Unit 4 Q&A Unit 4, Day 4, Wednesday: Stock based Sauces Steven has given you these fundamentals of a fabulous stock, now we're going to transform that product into sauces. From there, a whole world will open up to you that you never dreamed possible! Don't be too afraid. It is okay to experiment AND screw up. I'll be giving you pointers of how to fix mistakes and troubleshoot problems INTRODUCTION It is generally believed that the French invented the concept of the sauce. But I believe it is a mistake to blame Escoffier for the rich, creamy sauces that many consider to be French in origin. He used sauces, of course, if a dish required them. But as Esther B. Aresty points out in The Exquisite Table, "he often he returned to La Varenne's simple method, using the juices that escaped from the food in cooking and reducing them for a sauce base." Believing that flour as a thickening agent would eventually be discontinued, Escoffier himself pointed out, "remember that starch is the only element in flour that makes it thicken. Pure starch, arrowroot, cornstarch, or potato starch would accomplish the same purpose but give a better result." James Peterson, in his book, Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making states, "In the last two decades, sauces thickened with reduced cream have become almost universal and in most cases have completely replaced roux-thickened white sauces. Because they are given body by reduction instead of with roux, they are usually more intensely flavored than their roux-thickened predecessors." While it may seem that Escoffier is vindicated at last, I encourage you to experiment in the "classic" methods of sauce preparation as it will broaden the base upon which you can experiment with the methods of the Nouveau Cuisine chefs. There are obvious reasons for utilizing sauces in one's cooking: moistness; flavor; richness; and appearance (added color and shine). A great sauce is a very basic thing: a good, flavorful, liquid base and a thickening agent. The French originated the idea of the "mother" sauce from which innumerable variations could be made. A mother sauce plus a flavoring produces a small sauce. While classic sauces were essentially limited to meat broth (mammal, fowl, or fish stocks) or dairy products, modern sauce-makers and the health-conscious alike are expanding their repertoire of sauces using vegetable stocks, vegetable and fruit juices, and even wine or beer. A NOTE ABOUT THE SAUCE PAN Without shilling for All-Clad too much, I would like to recommend a proper sauce pan, one with a sloped interior. The major trick to producing a very smooth sauce is being able to combine all the ingredients successfully. The hazards of a straight-sided pan is that there tends to be that corner of the pan where thickeners and other sediments will clump. There is nothing worse than trying to scrape sections of your sauce out of an edge of pan. As in the pictures below, those slope-sided pans have no interior corner and makes the creation of a sauce a joyous thing. ROUX AND OTHER THICKENERS The classically utilized thickener is called a roux and it is a combination of flour and fat that is cooked in various fashions to complement a liquid. I am extremely fond of roux because you can prepare large amounts of it in advance, store it for long periods of time, and use it when needed (just like frozen cubes of stock!). Scientifically speaking, a good roux has enough fat granules to coat the starch granules. Fats that can be used in making a roux are: clarified butter, margarine, animal fats (lard), and vegetable oil or shortening. I know a few sauciers who utilize vegetable oil for their roux to accommodate vegetarians, but I know of none that consider margarine acceptable, except in emergencies. While extremely well-practiced sauciers can discern the differences in their flour, I have not been able to tell any differences. For your reference, the quantity of starch in a flour, from highest to lowest is as follows: pastry, cake, all-purpose, and then bread flour. MAKING A ROUX INGREDIENTS 1/2 pound unsalted butter (I recommend Plugra) 1/2 pound flour (Note: this is a proportional measurement. Some sauce recipes will call for two ounces of butter and two ounces of flour, which creates the roux. This recipe is to create a supply of roux which you can keep for later use. You can use one pound of butter and one pound of flour or less or more, just so that they are the same amounts.) I am using the 1/2 pound measurement: The method for preparing a roux is to melt the fat in a pan over moderate heat and add the flour and stir until smooth and cook until the "floury" taste is gone. Cook, stirring constantly to achieve the desired color. White roux should be barely colored, or chalky. This is the roux that is used for milk and cream-based sauces. Moderate (or medium) heat is important. Heating the pan up quickly to melt the fat will result in evaporation and you will lose your proportions. In the beginning, the roux will look clumpy, somewhat like very pasty oatmeal. A pale, or blonde roux should be straw-colored and is used in veloutes and white sauces. A brown or black roux will be deep in color, have a nutty aroma, and is used in brown sauces. One caveat: A browned-flour roux has one-third the thickening power of other roux and is often used more to enhance color and flavor than to thicken the sauce. Other thickening starches that can be used include cornstarch, arrowroot, or breadcrumbs. There are many classic ways to thicken a sauce other than using a starch. These include a liaison of egg yolk and cream, a beurre manie ("kneaded butter"), or simple reduction. Those experimenting with Nouvelle Cuisine have succeeded in expanding thickening agents to include pureed beans, rice, and grains. The simple act of reducing a sauce is not only a method for thickening, but also an effective method for finishing a sauce as it not only concentrates flavors, but can also add new flavors and adjust the texture. This idea of finishing a sauce is an important concept - but one I want you to remember, as we will address it later. First, we must return to the concept of... THE MOTHER SAUCE The Mother sauces are generally put into two classifications, Warm and Cold sauces. The five basic warm sauces are: 1. Bechamel - Made from milk and a white roux. Variations include the Mornay Sauce (Bechamel with cream and cheese), Sauce Nantua (Bechamel with shrimp butter), and Sauce Raifurt (Bechamel with horseradish). 2. Veloute - Stock thickened with white roux. Variations include Sauce Supreme (Chicken veloute with cream), Sauce au vin Blanc (Fish veloute with wine and liaison), and Sauce Allemande (Veal veloute with liaison). 3. Brown or Espagnole - Brown stock bound with brown roux. Variations include Demi Glace (enriched brown stock), Madeira Sauce (Demi Glace with Madeira and shallots), and Sauce Chasseur (Demi Glace with shallots, mushrooms, white wine, and tomatoes). 4. Tomato Sauce - White stock with tomatoes, mirepoix, lightly bound with flour. Variations include Sauce Portuguese (Tomato with garlic, stock, and chopped parsley - a variation of basic tomato sauce). 5. Butter Sauces - Variations include Hollandaise (an emulsion of egg yolks and butter fat), Sauce Mousseline (Hollandaise with whipped cream), and Bernaise Sauce (an emulsion of egg yolks and butter fat with a tarragon acid reduction). These sauces will be covered by Lisa in her course. The two basic cold sauces are: 1. Oil Sauces - There are two basic types of oil sauces, Mayonnaise (egg and oil emulsion) and Vinaigrette Sauces (combination of oil and acid). Mayonnaise variations can include Remoulade Sauce (mayonnaise with capers, chopped parsley, pickles and anchovy) and Sauce Verte (mayonnaise mixed with puree of parsley, watercress, and tarragon). Vinaigrette variations include French Vinaigrette (mustard in vinaigrette, emulsified) and Sauce Ravigote (vinaigrette with capers and chopped pickles). 2. Compound Butter Sauces - Not sauces in the classical sense, but butter mixed with seasoning that can be placed upon finished dishes (usually warm). Examples include Maitre d'Hotel Butter (butter with lemon, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley) and Herbed Butter (butter with lemon, salt, pepper, chopped dill, basil, and chives). Lisa will tell you all about the oil sauces and compund butter sauces in greater detail. MOVING FORWARD To initiate you into the world of the Classic Sauce, I have presented instructions for both the white stock-based Veloute and variations (Part A) and the brown stock-based Sauce Espagnole and variations (Part B). The very end includes a section on troubleshooting and correcting problems. For the Brown Stock-based sauce, the coursework is based entirely on the premise that you have made the brown stock from the previous class. Do not cheat yourself by attempting to create a classic brown sauce with a canned broth, a bouillon cube, or any other quick-manufactured method of stock. These grocery store products are produced with so much salt and preservatives as to completely deny you the ability to manipulate and create any of the classic brown sauces we are going to discuss. For the Veloute, I am not quite so adamant on this point and this lesson can be gone through with a canned broth. When it comes to fish-based, vegetable-based, or even possibly chicken-based sauces, I understand that it is frequently necessary to utilize shortcuts in the kitchen and if I run out of homemade chicken stock, I can manipulate the seasonings in a sauce made with a commercial stock (see HINTS, at the end). Some of the best fish-based sauces are made with the bottled juices of clams or muscles, if no fresh is readily at hand. But for a truly exquisite brown sauce, do yourself a favor just once, and make one from scratch. Once basic elements have been constructed (like a Sauce Espagnole or a Demi Glace), just like your frozen cubes of stock, brilliant variations can be constructed with frozen cubes of brown sauce. The lowliest cut of meat can instantly be transformed into a spectacular presentation of haute cuisine, with a few basic ingredients... Part A - White Sauce This sauce is an excellent start even if you have not been able to make your own stock. It is a great beginning to experiment even with canned chicken broth but be wary of adding any salt. It is actually pretty simple and only requires a little patience and attention. Read through all the instructions before beginning. Of Veloute, according to Larousse Gastronomique, "in cookery, this name is used more than anything else as the title for a white sauce made with white veal or chicken stock, a basic sauce which is used as a base for a number of other sauces, notably Allemande." When one thinks of the "classic, French cream sauce," it is the Veloute-based Sauce Allemande which is what is being recalled. Historically, the name originates with Careme (the High Priest of Haute Cuisine), because the sauce is light in color, used a Germanic-reference to differentiate this sauce from the dark brown, Sauce Espagnole. We won't be discussing nutritional or caloric content here. It is rich, creamy and fattening. Get over it; it tastes good. I do want to add some important distinctions. While we are going to be delving into a Sauce Allemande made with chicken stock, it is important to know the classic differentiations: Use White Stock (Fond Blanc) to make Allemande Sauce Use Chicken Stock (Fond Volaille) to make Supreme Sauce Use Fish Stock (Fond de Poisson) to make White Sauce Use Milk (Lait) to make Bechamel Sauce On to Sauce Making! INGREDIENTS 1 oz. butter 1 oz. flour 2 cups white stock (veal, fish, or chicken), heated METHOD FOR BASIC VELOUTE 1. Make a roux with the butter and flour. Cook over low heat for three to four minutes. Cool the roux slightly. 2. Gradually add the hot stock to the roux, beating constantly until it boils. 3. Simmer the sauce very slowly for 1/2 hour. Skim the surface once and let reduce and thicken. 4. Strain through a chinoise (strainer) to remove thickened bits. Professional note: In high-end kitchens, professional sauciers will strain this sauce through dampened cheesecloth for an even more smooth consistency. I do not feel this is necessary for a serious amateur. In a professional kitchen, this strained sauce would be covered with plastic wrap (directly on the surface of the sauce to prevent skin formation). They would then keep this sauce hot in a bain marie or cooled in a water bath for later use. Congratulations! You have just finished a Basic Veloute Sauce! The first classic Mother Sauce! Now, move forward -- create a Sauce Allemande with the following instructions: INGREDIENTS 2 Cups Basic Veloute Sauce (about what you just made) 1 egg yolk 1/4 cup heavy cream Juice from 1/2 lemon (to taste) Salt (to taste) White Pepper (to taste) METHOD FOR SAUCE ALLEMANDE 1. In a heat-resistant bowl, whisk egg yolk and 1/4 cream. This is known as a "liason" 2. Bring your veloute back to a simmer temperature (not boiling). 3. Temper your egg mixture by slowing beating in 1/2 cup of hot sauce. This is an important technique AND step. If the liason were poured straight into the hot sauce, the egg/cream mixture would begin to cook and curdle. By pouring a small amount of hot stock into the liason, the temperature of the liason is beginning to be brought up to the temperature of the sauce on the stove. 4. Stir this mixture back into the sauce pan. 5. Stir slowly and bring both up to simmer (do not boil). 6. Add lemon juice, salt, and white pepper. Congratulations again! You have now created a Sauce Allemande! Again, a professional saucier would strain this sauce AGAIN, a step I feel is not necessary in the home kitchen. Now let's get creative... INGREDIENTS 2 Cups Sauce Allemande 1/4 cup capers 1 tblsp. fresh tarragon Dash of Champagne or White Wine vinegar METHOD It is really at this point in your Sauce Allemande that you can personalize it. I started with just the thought of capers. The dash of vinegar was a nice contrast to the salt of the capers and the lemon juice. But it made it a bit bitter. I added more lemon juice (a good "antidote" to vinegar) and struck upon the idea of tarragon at the last minute. In preparing this classwork (and not wanting good sauce to go to waste), I decided to grill up a few chicken breasts, saute some mushrooms, and boil some plain white rice. Here's the result: Now you can push on from here... here is a list of variations that come from some of the historical treatises like Careme and Escoffier: Veal Stock-based Variations: caper, chaud-froid, chive, chivry, curry, horseradish, mushroom, poulette, tarragon, Villeroi. Chicken Stock-based Variations: Albufera, mushroom, tarragon, Toulouse Fish Stock-based Variations: anchovy, Bercy, caper, cardinal, chaud-froid, fine herb, lobster, Normandy, oyster, riche, shrimp, Victoria Milk-based Variations: aurora, chantilly, cream, horseradish, mornay, Nantua Part B - Brown Sauce This is the perfect sauce for homemade stock. No canned broths or buillion cubes here! The classic Brown Sauce is also known as Sauce Espagnole, given that name by Careme. From Larousse's Gastronomique, "it is also called sauce-mere (parent-sauce) which indicates that it can be used as a basis for a vast number of derivative brown sauces. Some gastronomes regard it as a somewhat inferior sauce, but this point of view seems quite unjustified when Espagnole sauce is made as it should be, and succulent in consequence." Careme's recipe calls for "two slices of Bayonne ham... a noix of veal and two partridges and enough stock just to cover the veal only..." The instructions go on for eleven more paragraphs! One last note... Like Steven's stocks, this is not a fast process. It involves patience and much reducing of stock to a thick, rich, flavorful sauce. To show you an example, below is a picture of one tablespoon of my beginning stock, and one tablespoon of the demi-glace which I acquired after numerous reductions: On to sauce making! INGREDIENTS 4 oz. onion, medium dice 2 oz. celery, diced 2 oz. carrot, diced 1 oz. butter 2 oz. all-purpose flour 1 1/2 quarts brown stock, warm 2 oz. tomato puree 1 bay leaf 1/3 tsp thyme (two fresh sprigs) 4 parsley stems METHOD 1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. 2. Add the mirepoix to the butter. 3. Stir until all the vegetables are well browned. Note: It is important to do this over a MEDIUM heat, slowly (it could take over half an hour). If you try and do this quickly, your melted butter will evaporate! 4. Add flour, stir to make a roux. 6. Cook slowly until roux is medium brown, stirring constantly. 7. Gradually stir in the brown stock. and tomato puree 8. Stir constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Scrape the bottom for any browned bits of roux. When it has come to a boil, add the bouquet garni (herbs). 9. Reduce heat to simmer and skim surface. Let simmer for two hours until sauce is reduced. 10. Skim every half-hour or so. 11. Strain through a chinois lined with DAMPENED cheesecloth (this time, the cheesecloth IS important!) Press on mirepoix to extract their juices. Be patient (again!) as it will take a while for this thickened sauce to get through the strainer. At this point, you can save and cool this sauce by placing some plastic wrap directly on top to prevent skin formation. This sauce can be frozen into cubes for later or you can go on and make a Demi-Glace. DEMI-GLACE Ingredients 1/2 cup brown sauce (espagnole) 1/2 cup brown stock Method 1. Combine sauce and stock and simmer until reduced by half. 2. Strain through chinois lined with cheesecloth. See how thick it is... Variations which can be made with Sauce Espagnole or Demi-Glace: bordelaise, brown chaud froid, colbert sauce, diane sauce, duxelles sauce, perigueux sauce, sauce a la moelle, sauce chevreuil, sauce poivrade, piquante sauce, etc... (there are more possibilities there than can be mentioned!). TIPS AND TROUBLESHOOTING This is transcribed almost verbatum from my Epicurean instruction manual... 1. Correcting lack of salt - Lack of plain salt is easily corrected by gradually adding salt as needed. The final tasting of the sauce is made ona piece of food properly salted before being sauced. 2.Correcting lack of depth and body - Some sauces, due to too light a stock or some other reason will lack not only salt but also depth and body. The sauce will be perceived as "flat" on the palate and described as "needing something." The salt corrector in this case will have to be one of the following "body" salts: - Meat glaze if you have some. - Meat extract of the semi-solid type. The meat extract will give the sauce the rounded body you are looking for, but meat extract should be added only in minute amounts until the sauce has acquired the required depth. One should not be able to detect it in the final test. Meat extract is always a corrector, it cannot be used as a base for a sauce. - Anchovy paste is an excellent corrector for fish and other sauces. As with meat extract, it should give body but not be detectable. Obviously, the only time one should be able to discern the presence of anchovy is when one prepares an anchovy sauce. - Soy sauce, sign of the times and witness to the melding of civilizations, can be used a salt body corrector, especially in those sauces with an Oriental character and containing ginger and scallions. Again, do not use so much that it would be detectable in the final taste of the sauce. I have consistently used Tamari soy sauce in my beef bourguignonne for years. 3. Correcting too much salt: - Lemon Juice. Use a few drops to cut the sauce. If this does not work, increase the dose of lemon juice gradually. In sauces made with vinegar, do not hesitate to reduce some more vinegar and whisk it gradually into the sauce until the taste has been corrected. - Sour cream or creme fraiche can be used in both meat and fish sauce to cut concentration. - Heavy cream and sour cream can be used if the acid cream alone fails to correct your salt problem. Reduce the heavy cream in combination with sour cream; the concentration of lactose may be helpful. 4. Correcting too much acid: - Sauces made by reducing acid ingredients such as wine, vinegar, or citrus juices are often perceived as too acid when finished. The basic corrector for acid is salt in any of its forms (plain salt or meat extract). Try plain salt first. - A bit more butter will also help (in mounted sauces): for fish and shellfish sauces, reduced heavy cream is infallible. - Reduced heavy cream deserves a special paragraph, for it is one of the most precious ingredients for the cook in modern cuisine. Should one add plain cream to a sauce already too acidic, the cream would immediately turn sour and proceed to reinforce the already existing sour taste. By reducing the cream, one challenges its chemical composition. Water evaporates, protein and milk sugars (lactose) concentrate, and the dominant taste in the cream is then that of the lactose, the element that will counteract the acidity of the sauce. One should proceed gradually, adding the reduced cream in small amounts until the taste is corrected. 5. Correcting too little acid: - Add a drop or so of lemon juice or a tablespoon or so of sour cream or creme fraiche if the nature of the sauce allows it. Also try Dijon mustard added very gradually, in minute amounts. 6. Correcting too much sweetness - Too much sweetness will occur in sauces containing fruit juices and fruit purees. The correctors are: lemon juice, sour cream, or prepared Dijon mustard -- each and any added very gradually until the sweetness disappears. 7. Correcting an edge of bitterness - An 'edge' of bitterness will occur in sauces containing burned shallot or garlic, citrus rinds, chocolate, and sometimes a cooked puree of garlic (in this case because the green bud inside older cloves has not been removed before the garlic is cooked). To correct this problem, try adding reduced heavy cream or a dab of honey in minute amounts. 8. If the sauce is over-reduced - Add stock, fish fumet, or plain water. Notice that an over-reduced sauce will often need a taste corrector as well because it is likely to be over-salted. 9. If the sauce breaks butter: - If the butter goes out of emulsion and 'separates' as the expression goes, add stock, fish fumet, or any adequate liquid to reform the emulsion. Note that it is more of a temperature problem and the addition of another liquid also involes adjusting the heat. 10. If the sauce is too thin: - Continue reducing. If the sauce is too thin and can stand further correction as far as taste is concerned, bring the sauce back to a full boil and continue reducing. - Process (mount) with butter - or Monter au Beurre. This is also a fine finishing technique. The process of gradually whisking in cold pats of butter, a tablespoon at a time, into a hot sauce, is an widely used technique. It provides body, sheen, and a fabulous flavor-enhancer. Caution: This process can lead to a sauce 'breaking' and requires practice and patience. - Thicken with starch. If the sauce is too thin, but cannot take any more reduction because it tastes just right as it is, do not hesitate to stablilize (lightly thicken) the sauce with a slurry of pure starch or some of your pre-made, refrigerated roux. For a slurry, dissolve the pure starch (arrowoot, potato, cornstarch) in a bit of cold stock or water. Turn the sauce down to a simmer and stir the slurry into the sauce until the latter thickens. Simmer, but do not boil and stir gently, do not whisk violently (any wild cuts through the starch molecules thin it down again). Pure starches are very variable in their thickening powers and very fickle in their reaction to heat. Here's hoping you have had fun experimenting with stock-based sauces -- continue with Lisa's class on non stock-based sauces and the sky will be the limit!

Please post questions relevant to Unit 3 here

Please post your questions related to this Unit here --->>> Unit 3 Q&A Unit 3, Day 2 or 3, Monday or Tuesday: Straining, defatting, reducing At the end of your many hours of simmering, you'll end up with something like this: Straining This is the only part of stockmaking that requires any actual effort. Unfortunately, the equipment we consumers have doesn't allow any shortcuts here: you're just going to have to pick up the stockpot and dump the stock through a strainer into another pot. In commercial kitchens, stock is usually made in something called a steam-jacket kettle. This is a freestanding stock kettle -- a big one. The really nice thing about a steam-jacket kettle is that it has a spout at the bottom, through which you can drain the stock. You just put a strainer and a pot under the spout, open it up, and stock pours through, leaving behind all the byproduct -- the spent bones and vegetables -- for easy disposal. A steam-jacket kettle even has its own plumbing so it's easy to fill with water and easy to clean. There are some consumer-level stockpots available that have spouts, but I don't recommend them. Too much can go wrong. So, we use a regular stockpot. The best thing to do is get as much stock out and through the strainer as you can before you lift the pot. In other words, take a big ladle or even just a jar or other vessel, and transfer as much stock as possible to the receiving vessel. This will substantially cut the weight of your stockpot (the liquid is heavier than the solids, which is why the solids float), making it easier to lift and pour. If you allow the stock to cool for an hour first (or, see the ice-cube trick below) it will be easier to handle -- and safer. My preferred method of pouring is to do so with the lid affixed slightly off center. This holds the big chunks of bones and vegetables back so as not to damage the strainer or fall outside the smaller receiving pot. I also advocate putting the receiving vessel in the sink, with the sink cleaned and the drain shut -- just in case there's a spill you can still recover all your product that way. Hold the lid on tight and pour, making sure you get as much precious liquid out as possible Once you've poured off your stock, you're going to have quite a lot of meat remaining -- assuming you used a lot of meat to start with. This isn't going to be the tastiest or most useful meat, because most of the flavor and texture have been cooked out of it. But I like to pick it off the bones and save it for a variety of uses. It's great in fried rice, hash, tacos, and pretty much any spicy dish that calls for shredded or chopped meat. And remember, when you have stock, you can add a couple of tablespoons to most any dish to enrich and enhance it, so if you make hash, stir in a bit of stock -- ditto for fried rice. It makes a big difference. Also, if you have pets, they will very much appreciate this meat, which is salt-free and therefore especially good for pets. This is why I gravitated towards the soup bones with so much meat on them -- I knew I'd be able to extract that meat later Even after extracting the chicken breasts, there's a ton of meat left in this stockpot Defatting and reducing Once you're done straining your stock, the easiest thing to do is put the whole stockpot in the refrigerator (you can invert the lid if it's a close call on height). As the stock chills, the fat will solidify on top, making it very easy to remove -- this is also the best way to get almost all the fat out of your stock, because it's so foolproof. If you can't fit the stockpot in the refrigerator, the next best thing to do is go with a few smaller vessels. Quart-sized plastic takeout soup containers work well, as do plain old bowls. If you don't want to use any of the refrigerator methods, you can also defat by running several small batches through a defatting pitcher, or you can just go in with a ladle and try to get as much fat off as possible. These methods don't work as well as refrigeration, but they're effective. To cool a pot of stock without using the refrigerator, drop a Zip-Loc bag full of ice cubes right into the pot. Repeat as needed. You can get your stock pretty cold this way. What you don't want to do, however, is leave stock sitting at warm temperatures (what, in food-service, they call "the danger zone") for too long. It's not that the stock itself will go bad, but, rather, that it is an excellent breeding ground for bacteria. In fact, if you want to grow bacteria, beef stock is a preferred medium -- laboratories traditionally used beef stock for this purpose. Once you've defatted the stock (if you're having trouble washing the fat down the drain, remember to run the tap hot not cold), you officially have usable stock. But if you want to save some space, it makes sense to reduce all of it right away rather than storing it as larger-volume stock and reducing as needed. So, bring it up to a simmer again -- a gentle boil really, though not a totally vigorous one -- and let it reduce. You may have to skim off a few impurities from time to time, but if you've made your stock well up to this point there will be very little of that. Defatting and reducing our two stocks How much you should reduce your stock isn't a question answerable by an easy statement like "reduce by half." It depends a lot on how much product you started with, and how rich your stock is in the first place. I don't consider it an exact science -- I will typically reduce stock based on my storage-space requirements and, later, when I'm actually using it, I can always dilute it to taste or reduce it some more in the rare instance that I need a true old-world glace (as in a 20x reduction). If you follow roughly the same procedures I have, you will get very good results from a 3x reduction: You would have strained the contents of a 16-20 quart stockpot into an 8-quart stockpot, and reduced that to 2-3 quarts. But really, that 3x reduction will be a heck of a lot stronger than a typical restaurant 3x reduction -- probably more like a 6x-8x restaurant reduction because our stock was so rich to begin with (restaurants use a lot of water in their stockmaking, relative to what we've been doing in this lesson). Your stock, thus reduced, can be refrigerated or frozen. Ice-cube trays are excellent for making individual-dish size frozen cubes of stock. Zip-Loc baggies are very space-efficient. Reduced stock will keep in the refrigerator for a very long time, and in the freezer literally for years. An ice-cube-size chunk of frozen stock is ideal for making a quick pan sauce for two people Zip-Loc baggies are perhaps the most space-efficient storage vessel for stock because they fit in the nooks and crannies of your refrigerator or freezer; once refrigerated to a gelatinous consistency or frozen solid, there is no fear of leaks or spills; squeeze out as much air as possible and, if you're freezing the stock, immediately stash the filled bags in the freezer on their sides, horizontally (you can stack three or four on top of one another); when they're frozen solid, they can be stored vertically, essentially in sheets, which take up far less space in the freezer than a "slumped" bag. Refrigerated stock, reduced as we've done here, will take on the consistency of Jell-O. This makes it convenient to handle. Some chefs cut their reduced stock into cubes for portioning purposes, though you can also just keep it in a tub and spoon it out as needed. Proper texture, after refrigeration, for heavily reduced stock Beware, however, that stored stock is visually nondescript. In the freezer, after awhile, you'll have no idea if you're looking at meat stock, poultry stock, shellfish stock, brown sauce base, chili, or stew. Or is that frozen meatballs in tomato sauce? Thus, clear labeling is a must. It's also a good idea to date the packages so that, if you make new stocks before exhausting the current inventory, you can use the oldest ones first. Write on the packages -- especially the Zip-Locs -- before you fill them. Three quick non-recipes with stock Before moving on to technical sauces, it's worth looking at how stock can energize and improve a couple of simple, informal, home-cooked dishes. The point of this exercise is to give you ideas and demonstrate possibilities, not to give actual recipes. Once you start thinking about the dishes you can improve with stock, you'll be using it all the time. Vegetable soup-stew At any given time, I'm likely to have a bunch of unused vegetables lying around, headed towards rottenness. A little stock and a few other basic ingredients will transform these vegetables into a delicious, healthful, filling vegetable soup. The stuff from my refrigerator, much of it on its last legs This is improvisational cooking at its easiest. This time around I decided to make a Thai-curry-style vegetable soup, tending towards a stew. But you could easily use different seasonings, vegetables, and chopping methods to create a unique soup. Here's what I did: 1) Sweat some diced onions, minced garlic, and minced fresh ginger in the pot 2) Add Thai curry paste 3) Moisten with stock so the curry paste dissolves and the onion-garlic-ginger-curry-paste mixture becomes a rich base; I also added a little fennel, because I had some around; add a little salt 4) Add the vegetables that take the longest to cook first, stir to coat with the base and let them cook a bit; add a little salt 5) Add more stuff; plus a little salt with each new ingredient 6) Add it all 7) Top off with water and let the whole thing simmer until everything is cooked through but not mushy; add any additional necessary salt (in this Asian-style preparation, you can also use soy sauce instead of or in combination with salt) This stuff stores and freezes very well, and even tastes good at room temperature for a portable lunch. Braised anything When braising short ribs, brisket, or anything else, the addition of even a little stock to the braising liquid has two benefits: 1) it improves the flavor of whatever you're braising, and 2) it provides the basis for a delicious sauce based on a reduction of the braising liquid. For demonstration purposes, these are some short ribs braised in a mixture of water plus two of those reduced-stock ice-cubes. Even a small amount of stock transforms your braising liquid To enhance that liquid, you could also add a fresh mirepoix (carrots, onions, and celery, plus herbs) and some red wine or beer. When you're done with the braising, strain the liquid, skim off as much fat and as many impurities as you can, and bring it to a gentle boil. Keep skimming the crud off the top as it reduces. Eventually, you will have an amazing gravy that has been thickened with nothing but itself -- no roux, Wondra, arrowroot, or corn starch; just a clean meaty flavor. When the braising liquid is reduced to a nice spoon-coating consistency, and not before then, add salt to taste. The sauce will be so rich, you won't need to serve very much of it If you're not familiar with the basics of braising, ignore this information for now -- you'll be brought up to speed later in the eGCI and then you can come back here for reference. Egg-drop soup This is a warming, nutritious version of egg-drop soup made with stock only -- no corn starch or other thickeners. You can use this soup as a base and add vegetables or meat, but it's quite good on its own as a light lunch or side dish. The first step is to take our blank-slate chicken stock and convert it into something approximating an Asian chicken stock. This is accomplished by combining some slices of fresh garlic and ginger with a few tablespoons of our rich reduced chicken stock. We're going to remove these pieces, so their appearance is unimportant At this point, add a pinch of salt. Top off with water, bring to a simmer, and simmer together for 5-10 minutes to flavor the stock Next, run the stock through a strainer to remove the ginger and garlic pieces, or just pick them out with tongs or a skimmer. At this point you should add a little more salt to the stock -- enough to start bringing out the flavor. Crack a couple of eggs into a Pyrex pitcher or any bowl from which you can pour easily. Whisk the eggs thoroughly and add a pinch of salt. Then, with the stock boiling moderately, start making circles in the saucepan with a whisk while drizzling in the egg. Continue this process until you have egg-drop soup. Taste and add any necessary additional salt, and you're done. Other stocks With the same basic techniques we've discussed in these past few units, you can make pretty much any kind of stock. A few of the more commonly utilized procedures are: -For a fish stock: chop your onions, carrots, and celery into small pieces because this stock cooks quickly and there won't be time to extract all the flavor from big chunks of vegetables. Use fish trimmings, bones, and heads -- about a pound per quart of water -- and for aromatics you may wish to add white peppercorns, bay leaf, and a bit of lemon peel. Simmer for approximately 30 minutes and strain. Fish stock freezes well, but whatever you don't freeze should be used right away. -For a shellfish stock: a shellfish stock cooks just like a meat stock -- for a long time -- and can be based on lobster shells and bodies, crab shells, or any other crustacean shells in combination. It makes a wonderful base for shellfish bisque as well as for interesting sauces. If you're cooking lobster or crabs for dinner one day, save all the shells and roast them in the oven the way you'd roast veal bones for a brown stock. Add shells, onion, carrot, celery, and half a fennel bulb to the stockpot and cook, strain, and reduce it as you'd do for a meat stock. -For a vegetable stock: saute onions, whole cloves, garlic, carrots, celery, and leeks in a small amount of oil. Add water and a bouquet garni of bay leaf, peppercorns, thyme, and parsley. Simmer for half an hour, skimming any impurities off. Strain, skim, and freeze or use soon. Don't simmer it too long or reduce it heavily because vegetable stock gets bitter easily. You can add bits and pieces of most vegetables, especially if you want to match the stock to a given vegetable in a dish, but avoid anything like cabbage or broccoli that gets that bitter/acrid flavor when overcooked. Add tomato paste or tomato byproduct (such as skins and flesh) for color and flavor if desired. You can also recycle the water from soaking dried mushrooms or sundried tomatoes for use in a vegetable stock (be sure to strain it, preferably through a cheesecloth or paper coffee filter). That's the end of my portion of this lesson. In the remaining units of this class, Carolyn Tillie will take you from stock to sauce, with many examples both classic and contemporary. The great thing is, now that you have the basic stocks on hand, there's nothing complicated about making even some of the fanciest-sounding restaurant-style sauces. Many thanks to Ellen Shapiro for her help with so many of these photos. Good luck, and enjoy. Please post your questions related to this Unit here --->>> Unit 3 Q&A

Please post questions related to this course here. The eGCI Team requests that you please post relevant questions only. This will ensure the integrity of the learning process.

Post questions here: Simmering the Basic Stocks -- Q&A Unit 2, Day 2, Monday: Simmering the basic stocks By now you've assembled all your ingredients and equipment. From here on in the process of making stock is amazingly simple. But before we start, let me encourage you, if you have a digital camera, take pictures. Just as I've documented my eGCI course materials, you have an opportunity to document your own. And on the Q&A thread, you can post pictures to make your questions clearer, or you can post them just because you want to share, or you can document a particular success or failure, or you may have something to add to the lesson that I didn't think of. Now, on to stockmaking. Preparing the aromatic vegetables Halve and peel the onions, peel the carrots, and trim and rinse the celery. Though some people skip this step, taking a couple of minutes to prepare the vegetables this way will give you a cleaner-tasting stock and will aid the transfer of flavor from vegetables to stock. Depending on the size of your stockpot, you may also want to cut the celery and carrots into smaller chunks. Before After In the pot The poultry stock We'll start with the poultry stock, because it's the easier of the two stocks (though both are easy). When you do this in real life, however, you'll be multitasking and working on both stocks simultaneously. I just think, conceptually, it's easier to discuss and illustrate them separately. Begin by loading the meat, bones, and aromatic vegetables (mirepoix) into the stockpot, and filling with cold water to cover. As mentioned in Unit 1, Day 1, the easy rule of thumb for the mirepoix is to get a three-pound bag of onions, a standard supermarket bag of carrots, and another of celery, for every 16-20 quarts of stockpot space, and to maintain a ratio roughly of 2:1:1 onions:celery:carrots. The carrots and celery combined should be about as much volume-wise as the onions. All the ingredients, ready to go If you're lucky enough to have a flexible hose on your faucet, use it to fill the stockpot; otherwise, put the stockpot in the sink to fill (if you'll be able to lift it afterwards) or use a smaller vessel to transfer water (if you don't relish the thought of lifting several gallons of bones and water) Crank up the heat to full-blast at first. When the stock begins to show small bubbles, turn it down to a lower heat -- just enough to maintain a simmer. You never want to bring stock to a rolling boil, because this will damage the flavor and force too much fat and too many impurities to incorporate permanently into the stock. The simmer you want to achieve will have some of the surface bubbling and some of the surface placid -- the placid areas are where the fat will collect. As the stock approaches a boil, reduce the heat to maintain a simmer Within a few minutes of reaching the simmer, or even before, scum will appear on the surface of the stock. Remove this with a skimmer, spoon, or ladle. You'll probably have to skim two or three times, at about 10-minute intervals, before scum stops appearing. Skim the stock periodically, until scum mostly stops appearing As an aside, if you happen to be basing your stock on whole chickens, as I've done, you'll want to utilize the breast meat. When the chicken is cooked (this really depends on the size of the bird and a lot of other variables, but for me these 3.5-pound chickens cooked nicely in approximately the first 40 minutes of simmering), pull it out -- I do so by sticking a big fork into the chicken's body cavity. I transfer the chickens directly to the sink because they tend to hold a lot of liquid, and I let them sit for a few minutes until they're cool enough to handle. Then I remove the breast meat with my hands -- it pulls off pretty easily -- and return the rest of the chicken to the stockpot. You can immediately make yourself a nice sandwich (or six) as a reward, or save the breast meat for chicken salad or any number of other preparations. I also use this opportunity to pick off and discard most of the chicken's skin -- it comes off easily. There's no need to be fanatical about it, but mostly what the skin will contribute from here on in is fat that will need to be removed later anyway. The chicken stock is now ready to simmer for a good long time. My personal preference is to let it simmer overnight. I usually start my stockmaking after dinner and pull it off the heat in the morning. To me, stock tastes better if simmered for 8-12 hours. But you can get good stock in 3-4 hours or less as well. It all depends on your schedule, and the desired use. In particular, if you truly want a white-ish stock, you will have to cut the cooking short -- any stock left simmering overnight is going to take on brown-stock-like properties. I check the stock a couple of times in the middle of the night and top it off with a little more water as needed to compensate for evaporation. If you're not intimately familiar with the simmering properties of your stove, you probably shouldn't leave stock on overnight the first time you make it -- but eventually you'll be able to set everything such that there's no worry of the stock boiling or becoming too cool. The meat stock Stocks are traditionally divided into "white" and "brown" stocks. The chicken stock we've been making is a "white" stock. It will be an excellent base for -- you guessed it -- white sauces because of its mellow flavor and light color. But we easily could have made a brown poultry-stock instead. Brown stocks have additional flavors (nutty, roasted) and more color (a reddish brown) than white stocks. The nutty, roasted flavor comes largely from roasting the bones prior to making the stock, and the rich reddish-brown color comes from a combination of the roasted bones and a tomato product. The easiest tomato product to use is tomato paste. So, if we had roasted our chicken bones and added a little tomato paste, we'd have created a brown poultry-stock. In my opinion, however, poultry stocks are better suited to being white and meat stocks are better suited to being brown. But it's certainly possible to make a white stock from beef or veal -- in classical cooking this would be an important ingredient to have on hand. In order to demonstrate the difference between white and brown meat stocks I started out making a white stock and then converted it over to a brown stock. You already know the basic process from the chicken-stock above, so this will be a little more elaborate. You can streamline as you see fit, or you can even split the stock into a white batch and a brown batch if you like. Because beef bones give off substantially more scum and blood than chicken bones, it's easier to "wash" them than it is to throw all the ingredients into the stockpot right off the bat. What I would do for a white stock is put the bones in the stockpot, cover them with water, bring to a boil, pour off the water-and-scum, refill the pot, and repeat the process at least once more until the bones are boiling clean. Begin with bones only, no vegetables yet Beef bones give off a lot of blood very quickly The scum generated by these bones is quite a bit more than what chicken bones would produce Washed bones ready to be made into a white meat-stock Now add the aromatic vegetables (same onion:carrot:celery ratio as with the chicken stock), fill with cold water to cover, and crank up the heat. Meanwhile, I've been working on the necessary components of a brown stock. Those neck bones from the market got roasted for about 45 minutes in a 375 degree oven. The longer you roast them without burning them, the nuttier and more "roasty" they'll taste. Roasting bones can be extremely messy (lots of splatter potential), and if you do it in Pyrex or uncoated metal you may find yourself with a nasty cleanup job. What I like to do is roast in a non-stick pot like the one shown here. This contains much of the splatter and makes cleanup very easy. But you can roast in anything, including disposable aluminum foil trays -- a good option. Before After Now, a demonstration of the difference between white and brown stock. Thus far I've brought this stock along as a white one. But I don't want a white stock. I want a brown stock. As explained above, much of the color of brown stock can be achieved by use of a tomato product. The images below show my stock first as it was coming along on the path to being a white stock, and then 60 seconds after the addition of one spoonful of tomato paste. On the way to being a white stock Immediately, a brown stock Afterwards, I added the roasted bones for their additional nutty flavor. Needless to say, if you're just making a brown stock, you can skip all the theatrics above and just make your stock with roasted bones and tomato product in the first place. When you do that, go ahead and actually "paint" the roasted bones with a few tablespoons of tomato paste before adding them to the pot. This adds a deeper, more roasted flavor than just mixing the paste into the water. Your meat stock, too, will have to simmer for a long time. Again, I prefer 8-12 hours, but this is not strictly necessary (and some would argue that you get a cloudier stock if you simmer for so long -- but as a home cook I don't really care about cloudiness and other cooking-school/professional-chef-geek aesthetic standards). My stocks, ready to settle in for a night of simmering Depending on whether you've chosen a daytime or a nighttime stockmaking schedule, you'll move on to Unit 3 either today (Day 2, Monday) or tomorrow (Day 3, Tuesday). See you then. Post questions here: Simmering the Basic Stocks -- Q&A When you are ready for the next step, go to Unit 3

COURSE NAME: Stockmaking and Stock-Based Saucemaking -- 5 Units -- Aug 1 (Fri), Aug 4-6 (Mon-Wed) is now LIVE... please visit Stocks and Sauces Class for more information!!

Please use this thread to post any questions for the stocks and stock-based sauces instructors, Fat Guy and Carolyn Tillie.

Please post any questions here -->> Q & A Instructors are: Fat Guy and Carolyn Tillie Overview of the lesson Unit 1, Day 1, Friday: Introductory material, ingredients, equipment Unit 2, Day 2, Monday: Simmering the basic stocks Unit 3, Day 2 or 3, Monday or Tuesday: Straining, defatting, reducing Unit 4, Day 4, Wednesday: From stock to sauce intro, white (Part A) and brown (Part B) sauces Unit 1, Day 1, Friday: Introductory material, ingredients, equipment by Steven A. Shaw (Fat Guy) Stock: there is no substitute When you roast a turkey, or a hunk of beef, the pan juices form the basis of the gravy, which is of course the best part. Turkey without gravy is considerably worse than, say, a day without sunshine. Since I don't live in California and am not even sure where my swimsuit is located in my closet, a day without sunshine is hardly even noticeable to me. As any gravy lover will tell you, however, there's never enough gravy. Which is to say, there's never enough of the pan juices to make a sufficient quantity of gravy to service all the meat. For a French aristocrat in the 19th Century, this was no problem. All your chef had to do was roast a couple of extra turkeys, crush them in a gigantic press in order to extract all the juices from them, and throw out the turkeys. For us, however, the solution is stock. Stock is, in the first instance, a more pure, technically versatile version of the pan juices given off by roasted meats. Stock allows you to make enough delicious gravy to cover your turkey, without making extra turkeys. But more importantly -- and this is where the true conceptual liberation of stock comes into focus -- you can make gravy without making a turkey at all. Stock serves two primary functions: it adds flavor and body to food. This is especially the case with sauces and soups, but stock is also tremendously effective as a braising liquid and in several other applications we'll discuss later. I'm only, of course, using gravy as an example -- it's a relatively minor application in the grand scheme of stockmaking and stock-based saucemaking. When you cook with stock, your options are nearly limitless. If you've ever wondered why restaurant food tastes different -- and, in the case of good restaurants, better -- than home cooked food, stock plays a big role in the answer. And if you want your home cooking to move more in the direction of restaurant cooking, stock is an essential tool. Yet home cooks -- even the serious ones -- are often reluctant to make stock. First, they're concerned about the time commitment. And it's true that making a good stock takes hours and hours and hours. But nearly all that time is passive time. It took me less than 15 minutes to prep all the stock ingredients for this lesson (which produced enough stock to last me for several months), and that included photography delays. A little while later, I had to attend to skimming for a minute or two on a couple of occasions (I also performed some exercises for the purposes of instruction, but those don't count). The stock finished cooking overnight, while I slept. Second, they're concerned about storage. But one of the many miracles of stock is that you can reduce it to a super-concentrated essence known as demi-glace or glace (the latter being more heavily reduced). One of my stockpots is 16 quarts. At the end of the stockmaking effort, I had reduced the entire end-product from that pot to less than 2 quarts. In a typical meal I might make two people, I'll use maybe 1 tablespoon of that product as the basis for a sauce, or I'll use maybe a cup of it for a large pot of soup. And of those 2 quarts, only one went into the freezer. Glace can last for months in the refrigerator -- it does not have to take over your entire freezer or even a small part of it. Third, they think they can get away with using store-bought stock. And in many cases cheating is possible -- I'm sure it would be possible to fool most people most of the time in blind taste tests, especially when tasting highly seasoned dishes. But in the end there is no true substitute for your own homemade stock. In the past couple of years, I've tried at least 25 store-bought stock products and none has compared favorably to homemade. Most don't even come close, and even the $25-for-a-tiny-jar, price-is-no-object glaces sold by Williams-Sonoma and others aren't as effective as good homemade product, primarily because they contain too much salt. Fourth, they see stock as old-fashioned -- a vestige of classical sauce-intensive cooking that no longer has much relevance. But this couldn't be farther from the truth. Stock is a fantastic tool for modern cooking, because it allows for exactly the kinds of sauces favored by nouvelle cuisine chefs: lighter, naturally thickened sauces that let high quality ingredients speak for themselves while enriching and enhancing their favorable qualities. Overview of the lesson What we're going to make in this lesson is a basic poultry (aka chicken) stock and a basic meat (aka beef or veal) stock. These will loosely fall under the classical definitions of a "white" stock (the poultry stock) and a "brown" stock (the meat stock), although these categories -- as well as many of the formalities of classical stockmaking -- are not of great concern to us for the purposes of this approach. The stocks we'll make will contain no added salt, virtually no fat, and an extremely limited number of aromatic components (no herbs, peppercorns, or anything like that). What we're going to create are blank slates upon which you can draw anything. These stocks can later be gussied up for classical European recipes, or they can be given an Asian twist, or they can serve most any purpose. Because they're effectively salt-free, you will maintain total control over flavor until the last minute of saucemaking. And you will know exactly what's in them and enjoy the satisfaction of true cooking-from-scratch with building-block ingredients you crafted the old-fashioned way, in your own kitchen, by hand. After we make the stocks on Day 2 of the lesson, and process them in the first part of Day 3 (or at the end of Day 2, depending on your schedule), I'll present some basic recipe examples (a soup and a braised item) and then I'll be turning the rest of the instruction over to Carolyn Tillie, who will guide you through making several basic brown and white stock-based sauces both classical and contemporary. All the while we'll look at a lot of photographs in order to illustrate every step of the process, which is simple enough already but will become foolproof when you actually see it all unfold. And when this is all over, you'll have enough stock to last you through the entire eGCI curriculum and beyond. Ingredients This weekend, you will need to acquire the following basic ingredients for the stockmaking part of the course: - Poultry - Meat - Onions - Carrots - Celery - A small can of tomato paste And that's it. To elaborate somewhat: Meat and bones As mentioned above, stock adds flavor and body. Generally, the body-enhancing properties of stock come from the natural gelatin in bones. Bones alone, however, do not create particularly flavorful stock. The flavor of stock comes from the meat on the bones, aromatic vegetables (typically the trinity of carrots, onions, and celery, otherwise known as the basic vegetables of mirepoix), and other flavorings (which we are not using here, but which could include herbs, peppercorns, ginger, and the like). In the case of a brown stock, additional nutty, roasted flavor can come from basing the stock on roasted bones, and additional color can come from the addition of tomatoes or a tomato product like tomato paste. The options for meat and bone sources are many. If you do a lot of cooking of whole birds and bone-in cuts of meat, and you have extra freezer space, you may very well be able to accumulate enough byproduct for periodic stockmaking just by saving your bones and trimmings. But most of us will have to go to outside sources. If you have a good relationship with a butcher, you may be able to get "soup bones" for free or for a negligible sum. I don't have that option, because the butcher I use locally makes and sells his own stock (which isn't particularly good). And in much of the world, supermarkets have almost totally displaced real butchers. So for me, and for most people, the supermarket is going to be the most likely candidate to supply the raw materials for stockmaking. One option is to buy parts specifically designated for stockmaking. Most supermarkets sell beef soup bones, a lot sell veal neck bones, and some (especially ethnic markets that bone out their own chickens on premises) sell chicken backs, frames, and other stock-appropriate parts. If you can pick these up for just a few cents a pound, great. But once you get up into the range of a dollar or more per pound, it becomes ridiculous, especially when you consider that whole chickens often cost only 59 cents a pound. If you're going to pay more than that for soup bones, you may as well buy the whole chicken and make the stock from that. Which is exactly what I do. Because if I make stock from whole chickens, I not only get the stock, I also get a nice fringe benefit: the most beautiful poached chicken meat, enough for several large sliced-chicken sandwiches, chicken salad, or even chicken fried rice. When I went shopping for this batch of stock, chickens were on sale at Stew Leonard's in Yonkers, NY, for 59 cents a pound. I bought two chickens approximately 3.5 pounds each. That wasn't going to be quite enough for my 20-quart stockpot (more on quantities and ratios below), so I looked around for what else was on sale and picked up, in addition, a tray of several pounds of thighs for almost no money. A bizarre twist of modern agriculture and food distribution is that it's often cheaper to make stock from whole chickens than from parts These chicken thighs -- the day's sale item -- will add plenty of flavor and body to our stock The beef and veal choices were quite diverse at the market as well. I find that veal makes a slightly nicer stock, but beef makes a very good stock and is usually much cheaper. Sometimes I get a mix of beef and veal parts, but this time around the beef bones (there were four different types on display) were so advantageous price-wise that I went with all beef. In particular, there were some soup-bones available that had quite a lot of meat attached. After you're done making stock, this meat is great for hash (especially since you will have the ability to throw a couple of tablespoons of stock into your hash). Three variants of meat bones I found at the market Gelatin-rich neck bones, ready for roasting Quantity-wise, I recommend at least 1 pound of bones-with-meat for every 2 quarts of the size of your stockpot. That is to say, if you have a 16 quart stockpot, you should use at least 8 pounds of bones-with-meat. More certainly will not hurt. Less will result in a weaker stock. Aromatic vegetables For the mirepoix, the easiest thing to do is get a standard 3-pound supermarket bag of onions, a standard 1-pound supermarket bag of carrots, and another of celery, for every 16-20 quarts of stockpot space. That is to say, 3 pounds onions, 1 pound each carrots and celery for a 16-20 quart batch, or half that amount for an 8-10 quart batch. You want to maintain a ratio, roughly of 2:1:1 onions:celery:carrots. In other words the carrots and celery combined should be about as much volume-wise as the onions (you will lose some onion to trimming and peeling so your 3:1:1 purchase quantity will be more like 2:1:1 in the pot). Stock is incredibly flexible, though, so all you need to do is eyeball it. Aromatic vegetables for stockmaking Finally, for the brown (beef/veal) stock only, you may wish to add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, so you'll want to have a small can of that on hand. In addition, you will need to have or acquire the following for the saucemaking part of the course: - The completed stocks from the stockmaking part of the lesson - 1 pound unsalted butter - 3/4 pound all-purpose flour - 1 egg - 1/4 cup heavy cream - one lemon - salt - white pepper - 1/4 cup capers - enough fresh tarragon for 1 tablespoon chopped - 1/4 pound onion - 2 oz. celery (this will be diced) - 2 oz. carrot (also to be diced) - 2 oz. tomato paste - 1 bay leaf - 1/4 tsp. fresh thyme - 4 parsley stems - 1 shallot, finely chopped - 1/2 cup red wine - 1 tsp. dry mustard Equipment You will also need basic equipment: -Stockpot(s) -Strainer -Miscellaneous normal kitchen tools (knife, slotted spoon, a skimmer if you have one) -For the saucemaking unit you will need the above plus a saucepan, a whisk, and a measuring cup As you can see, stockmaking isn't complicated. We can talk about it for three days, but all it boils down to is, well, boiling. Or, rather, simmering -- but more on that later. You can perform this exercise with any size stockpot, even if it's only 4 quarts. But the bigger the better. It would be very nice for you to have at least two 8-quart stockpots for this lesson, even if that means borrowing one or -- since you're going to be a stockmaking genius from now on -- picking up a new one at Target or your local equivalent for $30. My preference, however, is to use at least a 16-quart stockpot. The amount of labor is the same, pretty much no matter how much stock you make. When I do this routine, which is a few times a year, I use both my 16- and 20-quart stockpots. (Remember, even if you use a big pot like that, your yield after serious reducing will only be a couple of quarts.) Front/left, a 20-quart heavy-gauge stainless-steel stockpot with an aluminum-clad disc bottom, purchased by mail from A Best Kitchen of Akron, Ohio, for $59, including the lid; back/right, a 16-quart Le Creuset enameled steel stockpot, these tend to cost around $100 at kitchen-and-housewares shops but often go on sale for much less; note that while these quart-sizes sound large to many people, the laws of volume are such that the overall apparent dimensions of a stockpot don't increase radically as between, say, 12 and 16 quarts -- as you can see, both of these large stockpots fit side-by-side on a 30" rangetop with room to spare, and both fit in the bottom rack of my dishwasher You will also find it convenient to have a third stockpot, at least half the size of the one you use for the actual stockmaking, into which you can strain the stock. It's not absolutely necessary -- you can use a few large bowls as a temporary home for the stock while you wipe out the main pot and transfer it back in for defatting and reducing. But having a third pot is nice. I use an 8-quart stockpot for this purpose. A Calphalon 8-quart stockpot, receiving strained stock from a 16-quart stockpot -- it will all fit on account of the volume lost to the meat and vegetables, plus some of the reduction that has occurred already A strainer is also a necessity, preferably a chinois-style strainer but any strainer will do for a rustic homemade stock. You may also use, if you have one around for pasta-making already, a colander or one of the devices in the middle of this picture -- it will prevent large chunks from falling into your fine-mesh strainer. Or you can use the lid trick shown in the image above, which I'll talk about more later. Left-to-right: a fine-mesh chinois, a pour-off sieve, and a regular old strainer A dedicated skimmer is not a necessary tool -- a spoon or small ladle will work just fine -- but it's convenient for skimming stock with minimal waste I've tried to go into considerable detail here not because stockmaking is complicated but because I'm hoping to demystify it as much as possible. It's going to be very simple all the way through, even when it comes time to make some very interesting sauces. See you on Monday. Simmering the Basic Stocks Please post any questions here -->> Q & A