The bone-anza and other happy discoveries

[Fat Guy]

A year or two ago, I was writing something that involved cooking a lot of beef short ribs. I think over the course of a couple of weeks I cooked 20-30 pounds of short ribs. Much of that weight was bone, and at the time I used a bunch of the bones and trimmings to make stock. But I also took about five pounds of short rib bones, put them in a huge zipper bag, and stuck them in the back of my freezer, in a little-visited nook behind the ice-cube tray. I completely forgot about them.

Until today. I was literally moments away from heading out to buy some groceries, including the makings of beef stock, when I decided to take a quick inventory of the refrigerator and freezer. I was just about to close the freezer door when I caught the corner of a zipper bag in the corner of my eye. Hmm, what's that, I wondered. The bag's contents had frozen in such a way as to present a real challenge of geometry: everything kind of froze around the L shape of a corner, so it was difficult to maneuver out of the freezer. I had to empty almost everything, and use a fair amount of brute force.

Now I'm making stock, no grocery shopping required.

I don't have a good term for this type of happy discovery of long-dormant items in the freezer. I think this is a different case from finding an old can of something great in the back of a cabinet. It feels more personal.

[LindsayAnn]

Nice Steven! Any pictures of these 'masses of bones"? How much meat did you leave on the bones before freezing, or is it mainly just bare bones? Lastly - can do we get to see some pictures of your final product (stock, and anything you'll use the stock for)? I SURE HOPE SO!

[Fat Guy]

I didn't exactly leave meat on the bones. The bones were left over mostly from braised short ribs. So, you know, what happens with short ribs, at least for me usually, is that the meat pulls pretty cleanly off the bone once you've cooked them. What I did was I took all the meat off the bones, then trimmed the meat into nice semi-rectangular chunks of edible short rib meat for service. Then I set the trimmings plus the bones aside for stockmaking use. So, there's a substantial amount of meat in the stockpot with the bones right now, however there wasn't actually any meat on the bones themselves.

The frozen block of bones and trimmings wasn't photogenic -- it wasn't even recognizable as food. And I put the whole frozen mass straight into the stockpot. I have, however, just grabbed a snapshot of the stock after simmering for several hours, and I'll post it later on.

[maggiethecat]

I had a similar bone-anza around Christmas. I was trying to make room in my freezer and found a whole hambone with much meat attached; it's the party favor I always get to take home after Easter dinner at my sister-in-law's. I made a couple of gallons of Senate Navy Bean soup with excursion to the depths of the freezer compartment. I suspect frozen bones have eternal shelf life.

[Rebecca263]

We just cleaned out the kitchen for Passover, and found film in the back of the tiny freezer, and a small container of duck livers. Yay!

In the 'pantry' cabinets, we found, LOTS of forgotten foodstuffs, such as 12 pounds of whole wheat pasta, ulp. Kiddle and friends will be eating pasta for dinner tonight, and pasta will be our take-it-home favors for the non Passover celebrating part of the gang. Although I have been informed that the non Passover celebrants are expecting matzoh brie for brunch this week. As we have received eleven pounds of matzoh so far, and there are only 2 of us, I think that I can accomodate the requests.

[snowangel]

About a year ago, we had a power outage that was predicted to last for about 5 days (and it did!), so when I went through the upstairs freezer, I found not one or two, but six bags of chicken carcasses and two big bags of necks and wingtips, plus a bag of chicken feet. Gas stove made stock possible!

[teagal]

I just rearranged my freezer a few days ago and was pleasantly surprised to see what I had forgotten was in there:half a loaf of pannetonne bread (there's breakfast for the next week!), a bag of cherries, a bag of cranberries (just read a recipe for apple crisp that stated one can substitute canned cran sauce for the apples, a fresh sauce should be so much better), some wild rice and really good cornmeal.

I agree that stuff in the freezer is more personal, I think because you take an extra step or more to get it there, and it has to be good or why else would you be saving it.

[dividend]

Yup, I know that feeling, even in my undersized apartment over-the-fridge freezer. The other day I was trying to find space to freeze some lasagna, and I found a neatly labled, foodsavered bag of strawberries from last June. It was a happy freezecovery of sorts.

[Fat Guy]

Some photos as promised . . .

This is the stock after simmering for several hours.

Here it is after going through the strainer.

This is about half of the total (I did this in two pots), ready to go into the refrigerator. I'll defat it tomorrow, when the fat hardens.

And here's what some of the bones, trimmings and mirepoix look like:

[maher]

ill admit to a bone-anza of another kind, which is what came to mind when i read the thread header.

i am a total addict to stock bones. i will wait patiently till beef or lamb bones have finished giving up their stock so that i can munch on the little trimmings of meat, various gelatinous bits, and marrow that the bones retain after the stock making. it is a culinary pleasure of the most basic kind, and one where i will wish for the lousiest butcher, who has left the largest amount of meat on the bones for me to eat. there is typically more meat left on lamb bones, which is enough to make me throw some in at every stock making opportunity. Cracking the bones to extract the bits of marrow is a bone-anza of the most primal kind.

[chromedome]

I've been rifling my freezer in preparation for moving, so I've had a number of those discoveries in the past couple of weeks.

Cherries that I'd bought on sale last year, during the peak of their oh-so-short season: found those one night when I was craving fruit, but everything was closed. Inhaled the lot between loads of laundry and dishes. No less than five kg of lamb trims, brought home from work; cleaned of excess fat and bony bits, ground, and turned into kofta and lamb sausage (another private treat, since I'm the only one in the house who likes lamb). Multiple packages of chicken carcasses and trims, diligently set aside for stockmaking. Last year's abundance of rhubarb, just in time for a revival of the rhubarb thread. Frozen peaches, frozen cranberries, frozen blueberries, frozen saskatoons. A big hunk of smoked bacon rind, from my first experiment with home-cured bacon, which is destined for the bean pot Real Soon Now.

I'll be moving to the east coast in two weeks' time to open my own restaurant, so my task (one of many, to be sure) is to turn all of these ingredients into a freezer full of things for my ex and kids to eat. My daughter and I are working our way through Bread 101 (I showed her basic lean bread last weekend, this weekend we're using a pre-ferment, and before the day's out she'll have made her first brioche and ciabatta). My goal is to have at least 24 loaves in the freezer before I go, so that she'll have had enough "reps" to be comfortable making it on her own.

[slkinsey]

Funny! I had a similar thing happen around a month ago. I usually buy whole racks of untrimmed short ribs from Western Beef or Big Apple Meats and have them cut to size on the band saw. This is a great deal on quality short ribs, but does mean that there will always be some pieces that aren't meaty enough or are otherwise unsuited to braising. These get cryovac-ed and stuck into the freezer. Last month, I decided enough was enough and made around 4 gallons of beef stock so concentrated it doesn't freeze solid in my freezer.

I do this kind of thing often with chicken bones. . . I like to roast whole chickens spatchcocked, with the breast bone removed. This always leaves me with the backbone, breast bone and whatever those funny thing are that attach to the thigh joint (hip bones). These go into the freezer until I can't stand it any more. Then it's stock-making time.