Q&A for Stocks and Sauces Class - Unit 1 Day1

[Sandra Levine]

I believe a general distinction is that "broth" tends to be flavored with potential aromatics (herbs, salt, etc). One can drink or have a bowl of broth.

Stocks tend to be the basis from which broth is made -- entirely salt- and herb-free.

Stock is also much more heavily reduced than broth.

[zilla369]

FG, in my experience at school and at work there are two diametrically opposed schools of thought on the use of vs the NON-use of tomato paste when making a brown stock.  Will you be addressing this issue in the lesson?

FG is travelling today so I am fielding comments today on this... He will probably weigh-in (no pun intended) and possibly have different thoughts than mine but...

Yes, we both have commented on the use of tomato paste in brown sauces and, coincidentally, WE BOTH USE IT!

Fat Guy had a different method than mine (he puts it in directly, I use the paste to paint the bones during their browning).

I am very curious why there would be such opposition to tomato paste and would be curious for further discussion as to why not to use it.

I just phoned the chef instructor i remember as having been the most adamant about not using tomato paste when making a brown stock. I wanted to be sure i was clear on what his reason for this stance was.

His answer was much the same as the "tabula rasa" reasoning FG gave for not adding salt to a basic stock. He said that when reducing to a glace or demi, sometimes the tomato tends to lend a certain bitterness to a glace. Also, he doesn't like the color it seems to bring to sauces - and a lot of tomato pastes include artificial color.

I will say that this guy makes the most beautiful clear brown jewel-toned stocks, glaces and sauces, even without clearmeat clarification, so i tend to side with him.

On the other side of the fence, what's the justification for using tomato paste? I assume it's either to heighten the carmelization process of the roasted bones, or that an acidic substance in stock can hasten the extraction of gelatin?

Edited August 1, 2003 by zilla369 (log)

[SobaAddict70]

There's nothing stopping anyone from making their own tomato paste.

Of course, of course.

Soba

[SethG]

I don't own a 16 or a 20 quart pot and I'm not about to go and get one. Do you think it would be practical to make a half batch (8 quarts) of chicken stock? I realize that this will reduce to just one quart, but that's one more quart than I have now. Will I risk too much reduction and burning (or anything else) by cutting the volume in half and leaving it on the stovetop overnight?

Also, I happen to have saved up some chicken backs (and a few wings) in my freezer over the past few weeks just for the purpose of making stock. I was going to make it based on a recipe in one cookbook or another-- then I came upon the miracle that is the eGCI. I think I know your answer on this, Carolyn, and it may be different from the Fat Guy's, but I'm wondering if the backs will be sufficient or whether I should go out and buy some other chicken parts (i.e., thighs) if I want a good stock.

[Jonathan Day]

FG, I was interested to read in your article that you enjoy eating the chicken and beef meat left over after making your stocks -- especially since you favor such long simmering (a practice with which I concur).  Don't you find that the meat has given up just about all of its flavor to the stock and is insipid and flavorless?

My guess is that when FG makes stock from whole chickens, he simmers the chickens just until the meat is properly poached, in which case it should be tender and flavourful, then takes the chickens out of the proto-stock, cools them a bit, and removes the best of the meat: breasts, thighs, etc. The carcases can then go back into the stockpot, and the pot back onto the fire, leaving you with poached chicken meat for salads, sandwiches and other cold preparations.

Once a chicken has been simmered for an appropriately long period (I do mine overnight, in the oven of an Aga cooker), its meat should be virtually flavourless. And I'm guessing that FG wouldn't settle for that.

[Carolyn Tillie]

I don't own a 16 or a 20 quart pot and I'm not about to go and get one.  Do you think it would be practical to make a half batch (8 quarts) of chicken stock?  I realize that this will reduce to just one quart, but that's one more quart than I have now.  Will I risk too much reduction and burning (or anything else) by cutting the volume in half and leaving it on the stovetop overnight?

Also, I happen to have saved up some chicken backs (and a few wings) in my freezer over the past few weeks just for the purpose of making stock.  I was going to make it based on a recipe in one cookbook or another-- then I came upon the miracle that is the eGCI.  I think I know your answer on this, Carolyn, and it may be different from the Fat Guy's, but I'm wondering if the backs will be sufficient or whether I should go out and buy some other chicken parts (i.e., thighs) if I want a good stock.

By all means start small if that is what you can do! Don't let yourself be limited by what you don't have, but start and learn with what you DO have. And yes, you are right, I think backs are more than sufficient (if not perfect).

BTW, I purchased a number of 10- 12- 16- and 18-quart pans (together) on eBay for about $4.00 each. Yeah, they are not the perfect, All-Clad variety, but there are bargains to be had out there and worth the investment. Also, if you have an decent Chinese market in your neighborhood, I have found some substantially sized pots in those stores (great for steaming because they have a steaming tray that sits on a ledge about three inches from the bottom of the pan).

Good luck!

[Fat Guy]

Jonathan, that is indeed what I do with the best parts of the chicken. In Monday's course materials, you'll see that I remove the breasts and throw the rest back in (this is a point on which I seem to differ from Carolyn -- I do think the extra meat, especially the dark meat, adds extra meaty flavor to the stock). On any given day, I might also remove the thigh meat and more -- but I didn't want to put the course participants through that whole procedure (the breasts are so easy to pull off, it's hardly an imposition).

However, to address M. Kinsey's comment, I do also use the long-simmered byproduct as an ingredient in, for example, hash and fried-rice. Theoretically the meat is going to be insipid, but the reality as I have experienced it is that this meat (especially beef and veal) is quite effective in these particular applications. Perhaps on account of having much of its flavor cooked out, it acts as a sponge for the flavors around it -- including a few tablespoons of stock, which I always add to such dishes (kind of like extracting and reflavoring decaf coffee beans in the Swiss water process, I suppose). For all I know the meat has zero nutritional value and is just cellulose, but I can't remember the last time I ate with nutrition as a goal and it tastes pretty good. And pets love it too.

It's not something I ever would have tried, because I'd have stopped at the theoretical objection. But a few years ago while making a couple of massive batches of stock with a chef friend, we became ravenous, we had no cash on hand, and we had nothing to eat but rice and basic pantry staples. So we resorted to picking all the veal off a bunch of neck bones that had been simmering for 8 hours, chopping it up, and making a spicy Southeast Asian-style fried rice. And you know what? It was delicious. At the end of the day, having cooked, styled, and photographed about 9 different haute cuisine dishes, we both agreed the fried rice had stolen the show.

[Carolyn Tillie]

FG, I was interested to read in your article that you enjoy eating the chicken and beef meat left over after making your stocks -- especially since you favor such long simmering (a practice with which I concur).  Don't you find that the meat has given up just about all of its flavor to the stock and is insipid and flavorless?

Also, I am curious as to your thoughts on using the carcasses of roasted poultry for stock making (i.e., using the bones from the Thanksgiving turkey to make turkey stock, etc.).  I have found that I prefer the result from starting with raw bones -- even if I do end up roasting them to make a brown stock -- rather than already cooked bones.

Thinking of stocks... it might be fun to pick up a cotechino, zampone, tongue, capon, etc. and do an eGullet bollito misto in the fall.

I found it! Remouillage is a word that translates "rewetting". According to the CIA's instructional manual, "some chefs argue that, if the first stock was made properly and simmered for the correct amount of time, there will be little if anything left in the bones to provide either flavor or body in the remouillage. Others feel that this second generation of stock can be used as the basis for other broths or as the cooking liquid for braises and stews. The food being prepared will provide the majority of the flavor in the finished sauce, and a firstrate stock can be reserved for use in dishes where its role is more significant."

Hope that helps.

[Carolyn Tillie]

FG, in my experience at school and at work there are two diametrically opposed schools of thought on the use of vs the NON-use of tomato paste when making a brown stock.  Will you be addressing this issue in the lesson?

FG is travelling today so I am fielding comments today on this... He will probably weigh-in (no pun intended) and possibly have different thoughts than mine but...

Yes, we both have commented on the use of tomato paste in brown sauces and, coincidentally, WE BOTH USE IT!

Fat Guy had a different method than mine (he puts it in directly, I use the paste to paint the bones during their browning).

I am very curious why there would be such opposition to tomato paste and would be curious for further discussion as to why not to use it.

I just phoned the chef instructor i remember as having been the most adamant about not using tomato paste when making a brown stock. I wanted to be sure i was clear on what his reason for this stance was.

His answer was much the same as the "tabula rasa" reasoning FG gave for not adding salt to a basic stock. He said that when reducing to a glace or demi, sometimes the tomato tends to lend a certain bitterness to a glace. Also, he doesn't like the color it seems to bring to sauces - and a lot of tomato pastes include artificial color.

I will say that this guy makes the most beautiful clear brown jewel-toned stocks, glaces and sauces, even without clearmeat clarification, so i tend to side with him.

On the other side of the fence, what's the justification for using tomato paste? I assume it's either to heighten the carmelization process of the roasted bones, or that an acidic substance in stock can hasten the extraction of gelatin?

Well, I just referenced James Patterson's book. He doesn't use tomato paste. The CIA instruction manual does. Larousse has two versions, one with tomatoes and one without. The Joy of Cooking uses fresh tomatoes. Bernard Clayton uses paste.

I could keep going through my books, but I guess the picture is pretty clear on the tomato paste thing... it can go either way.

I guess the best thing to do is try it both ways and see if you notice a remarkable difference and if one tastes better to you than another.

[Fat Guy]

"Could go either way" should be a stockmaking mantra. One of the things I want to emphasize in all this discussion is that there are hundreds of procedural variations all of which will yield delicious, beautiful stocks. For the most part the similarities among well-made stocks vastly outweigh the minor differences resulting from small changes to the ingredients or methods. I would strongly encourage all novice stockmakers not to get caught up in or intimidated by minutiae. For those who are somewhat more advanced and experienced, these little points can become hours-long debates, but in the end they are mostly acceptable variations on a theme. Because much of the body of stockmaking literature comes to us from restaurant chefs, it tends to be highly formalistic. The stocks I make at home, which are as good or better tasting than most restaurant stocks, would nonetheless never pass muster in a professional kitchen -- mostly for visual reasons. Just as the haute cuisine chefs of old took many home-cooking methods and refined them into restaurant-level techniques, what we're doing here with stocks is taking haute cuisine methods and adapting them for the home. I don't personally feel the need to create -- nor to instruct other advanced-amateur home cooks on how to make -- stocks that would satisfy a CIA or Cordon Bleu instructor in an exam situation. I'm concerned primarily with high levels of flavor extraction, simplification of methods, and efficiency of byproduct utilization. This represents my attempt to position the level of instruction along the lines of the eGCI mandate as laid out in gsquared's infamous post that gave rise to this whole thing.

[Fat Guy]

I recall Craig Camp making a big distinction between broth and stock with respect to making risotto.  Is this a distinction without a difference?

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Fidelity to traditional European recipes carries with it the acknowledgment of many differences that might seem less than significant to an outside observer -- an observer who would in turn be viewed as crass, arrogant, and uncaring by those who have developed the traditions that are being dismissed. This has traditionally been a fundamental point of disagreement between Old World and New World culinary thinking.

If you make risotto with a highly extracted brown stock produced in the manner prescribed in this lesson, you will not be making something that most traditionally oriented Italian cooks would acknowledge as risotto. You may, however, be making a delicious rice dish that will be viewed as risotto by everybody else in the world. Whether or not you choose to call it risotto or believe it is risotto is less of a cooking question than a socio-cultural one.

At the same time, the beauty of the blank-slate stock is that you can fake your way through just about anything with it. For example, if you want to make a brodo (broth) similar to what real Milanese risotto cooks use, what you can do is mix half-and-half meat and poultry stock and water it down to a weaker level of concentration. This will produce an amazingly convincing fake -- good enough to fool my friends from Venice if not the ones from Milan.

[Fat Guy]

FG, in my experience at school and at work there are two diametrically opposed schools of thought on the use of vs the NON-use of tomato paste when making a brown stock.  Will you be addressing this issue in the lesson?

In the lesson, I just use the tomato paste because it's easy and because that's how I learned to do it. Once Unit 2 is presented, we can discuss some of the variants if there is interest. There are really three issues: 1) tomato paste v. fresh tomatoes; 2) how the tomato product is added; and 3) tomato v. no tomato. It might be premature to get into them just yet, though.

[Fat Guy]

Not sure from earlier in the thread if you're covering non-stock-based sauces, but my question concerns cream sauces (to which I often add stock, if that makes me more relevant). 

Why do cream sauces break soemtimes and sometimes not?  I'll make the same sauce exactly the same way, so it seems -- for example, sweating shallots and garlic, cooking the alcohol out of wine and reducing it, letting the pan cool, adding cream and bringing it to a boil, to be finished with stock, herbs or whatever.  One time it wil break into a grainy mess, the next time it will be sublime.  What am I missing?  Or is that just the nature of the beast?

I'm going to defer virtually all saucemaking questions to Carolyn, and I'll also note that there will be additional saucemaking instruction even after her units are concluded. We've tried to include a substantial amount of saucemaking information throughout the eGCI curriculum, though that goal had to be balanced against the desire not to be overly technical and classics-oriented. I think you'll be happy with the balance, and if not we can always teach more after we get through the first round of courses.

[snowangel]

"Could go either way" should be a stockmaking mantra.

Bingo!

My family prefers a chicken stock made with a lower proportion of carrots to celery, so that's how I make it. That's the way WE like it, not necessarily the way YOU will like it. I make mine with bones and dark meat. I add chicken feet. Some people use whole chickens, no feet.

Although I make far more chicken than beef stock, my freezer usually has beef stock made both with and without tomato paste or fresh tomatoes. They each can serve a purpose.

Experiment!

[Fat Guy]

Recently I have been wondering whether the difference in flavor between a traditional demiglace and one made from duck and chicken is great enough to require having both on hand.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, a serious haute cuisine restaurant might make its sauces based on stocks that are product-matched to every dish on the menu: venison stock for the sauce on a venison dish, quail stock for the sauce on a quail dish, etc. And I say more power to them. But I would never in a million years bother to do that at home. 100% of my meat-and-poultry-based saucemaking and stock-enhanced recipe needs are met by having basic veal and chicken stocks on hand. In cooking, one can always do more, but for my palate and abilities this is enough.

[Fat Guy]

Another point concerns how much meat, as opposed to mere bones, one should use. I have started using a lot of meat in my stocks, generally using a whole veal breast in addition to the bones for my veal stock. This sounds extravagant but I think the complexity and richness of the final product make it worth while.

I feel that my stocks improved considerably when, a couple of years ago, I significantly upped the amount of meat in them. My informal observation is that bones impart mostly the thickening property, whereas flavor comes from the aromatic vegetables and the meat. Specifically, trite though it may sound, I think the meat gives a meaty flavor.

Finally, how much should we strain? I know that classically a stock had to be strained to the clarity of a consommé and obviously one has to strain. But don't you feel that flavor is lost every time one strains? I no longer strain through a cheese cloth. Does this make me a sinner?

I don't think much flavor is lost when you strain. The floating particles don't contribute much. The reason I don't perform elaborate straining is that I don't care enough to do it. But if you're a big fan of pretty stocks, you may want to.

[Fat Guy]

I make chicken stock far more often than beef stock.  When I want a cut up chicken (for another purpose), I always cut them up myself, and put the back, neck, etc. into the freezer.  Likewise, on the occasion that I want a boneless chicken breast, I bone my own and freeze the bones.

So, when I am ready to make stock, I am less likely to use a whole chicken than I am to get thighs and/or thigh leg quarters (often only $.29/lb here).  Is there a reason to use chicken breast in the stock?  I often also add a few chicken feet since they are readily available.

In your situation, I can't think of a good reason to use breast meat. The only reason I do it is so I can eat the breast meat, and taking account of that use means it's almost always more economically sensible for me to use whole chickens. But the breast meat doesn't contribute to my stock -- I remove that meat too early for it to be useful, and as I mentioned above I think the dark meat does a better job flavoring-wise.

And, can you please address chopping bones?  Should one whack those legs in half to release what is in the bones?

You'll notice in the Unit 1 photos that the beef bones I purchased are of course already sawed into manageable chunks with the marrow exposed. Invariably, this is how they will come packaged at the consumer level. For chicken bones, which are far smaller and seem more permeable than beef bones, I don't think it's worth the bother. A long simmer should get plenty of stuff out of them.

[snowangel]

For chicken bones, which are far smaller and seem more permeable than beef bones, I don't think it's worth the bother. A long simmer should get plenty of stuff out of them.

But, it's so much fun to to the "Hai, Karate" thing with the cleaver.

I don't use breasts because my family thinks breast meat is for tourists. They want a nice, meaty thigh with some fat.

[Fat Guy]

Also, I am curious as to your thoughts on using the carcasses of roasted poultry for stock making (i.e., using the bones from the Thanksgiving turkey to make turkey stock, etc.).  I have found that I prefer the result from starting with raw bones -- even if I do end up roasting them to make a brown stock -- rather than already cooked bones.

Making a stock from 100% roasted carcasses does not in my opinion yield as good a stock as you'd get from 100% raw. However, if you go with roughly 75% roasted carcass leftovers and you add 25% fresh raw, you will find that the flavor of the final product becomes substantially rounded out and ends up constituting a pretty good tasting, versatile stock. This at least has been what I've found, through trial and error, works for me. And certainly, if you start with mostly raw stuff, you will not damage your stock in any particularly discernible way by adding some pre-roasted carcass pieces -- you'll just save a little money and reduce waste.

[Fat Guy]

I don't own a 16 or a 20 quart pot and I'm not about to go and get one.  Do you think it would be practical to make a half batch (8 quarts) of chicken stock?  I realize that this will reduce to just one quart, but that's one more quart than I have now.  Will I risk too much reduction and burning (or anything else) by cutting the volume in half and leaving it on the stovetop overnight?

In theory, you could do this coursework in a 1-quart saucepan with just a few scraps. You wouldn't be making much stock, but you'd be making stock nonetheless and therefore you'd be a lot better off than you would have been had you never made stock at all. There's no problem at all with adjusting ratios, and my assumption is that most people will be using stockpots in the 8-12 quart range. Still, I feel the need to evangelize a bit for larger stockpots: there isn't much appreciable additional labor involved in making 20 quarts as opposed to 16, 12, 8, 4, or 1. And I think most people are using stockpots that are too small -- not only too small to make stock, but also too small to make a nice big batch of soup and too small to boil a large batch of pasta properly. So, I will continue to push for large stockpots even while telling you that you can do the coursework just fine with any size pot.

Also, I happen to have saved up some chicken backs (and a few wings) in my freezer over the past few weeks just for the purpose of making stock.  I was going to make it based on a recipe in one cookbook or another-- then I came upon the miracle that is the eGCI.  I think I know your answer on this, Carolyn, and it may be different from the Fat Guy's, but I'm wondering if the backs will be sufficient or whether I should go out and buy some other chicken parts (i.e., thighs) if I want a good stock.

Assuming an 8-quart stockpot, if you have 4+ pounds of these backs and wings on hand you should be on your way to a good stock. I encourage you just to make it with what you have on hand. Down the road, make it with a higher ratio of meat and see if you think there's a difference and, if so, whether that difference matters to you. And let us know. We're not going anywhere.

[zilla369]

I'd just like to say i think this Q&A bodes well for eGCI. This is a seriously cool project, people. Kudos already to FG and Carolyn.

[Bux]

It's my belief -- and this runs counter to the stockmaking instructions in some books -- that an exceptional and complex stock requires a lot of simmering time. I simmer my stocks for around 12 hours, usually overnight.

Perhaps that's the best quote to use to break in with a wish that everyone could read Jacques Pepin writing about stock from his early days at the Plaza Athénené in his memoir. (Page 96, if you have the book.) I'll quote just a bit, but there are more interesting parts that are too long for me to type.

After we boiled the beef and poultry bones long enough to be strained for stock -- twelve hours -- we would re-wet them, a technique called remouillage. We simmered them again for another five to six hours.

They made demi-glace from the first stock and glace de viande from the second. Both were defatted and neither had salt.

I found it interesting when he noted that as first commis he had the responsibility of making the glace de viande and inevitably made too much, which excess he sold to caterers, sharing the profit with the chef saucier. Lest you think him a thief, this was apparently an accepted tradition and a perq for the saucier and his assistant.

+++

My own two cents comes from an amateur with lots of bad habits, but enough dedication and interest over the years, so that there are bound to be some truths in what I do and think when cooking.

Chicken necks are one of the best parts of the chicken for making stock. I tend to use the words "stock" and "broth" interchangeably. If that's not quite correct, sue me, or at least be forewarned.

I find canned broth sometimes acceptable, or at least better than dried cubes, but agree that there's no substitue for a good homemade stock.

The meat from a long simmered stock will be tasteless. If you want boiled beef, first make a good beef stock and then simmer your beef in the resultant stock until done. Your boiled beef will taste better than if it was cooked in water and your stock will improve. The same goes for poultry.

A stock made from meat and bones will generally be better than one made from just bones, or just meat. A stock made from the carcass of a roast bird is not likely to be as rich as one made from a whole bird. I'd also prefer to roast fresh bones than use the carcass, but bear in mind that a stock from a used carcass is almost free and can later be improved with fresh meat.

After we boiled the beef and poultry bones long enough to be strained for stock -- twelve hours -- we would re-wet them, a technique called remouillage. We simmered them again for another five to six hours.

On straining, I often stop at a pass through a very fine meshed chinoise, but I'll also clarify a stock from time to time depending on how it's going to be used and how it looks. It's hard to watch a pot and easy to let a stock pot come to a boil too often. When that happens, the scum that should rise and be skimmed off gets incorporated into the broth resulting in a very cloudy broth. I've found that even an unappetizing opaque grey chicken broth can be brough to an almost transparent golden clarity by clarifying it. I use the technique set forth by Julia Child in Volume One of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I think this is an ambitious undertaking and this first lesson was emminently successful. I hope I've contributed a little.

[jackal10]

In ancient times the meat from the stockpot was used or sold for making meat pies.

For brown stocks I roast onions with the bones, and personally don't use tomato

You haven't discussed basic aromatics. I like adding a few peppercorns. Heston Blumenthal advises adding a small amount of star anise - he claims it is a (Umani) meat flavour enhancer.

I offered to do a cream soups, potages etc unit. I'd be happy to add clarification, consomme and soup garnishes to that.

[Fat Guy]

You haven't discussed basic aromatics.

The way I see it and use the terminology, the carrots, celery, and onions are the basic aromatics. That's what we're using for a basic blank-slate stock. Although adding other aromatics like star anise can shape and enhance the stock, I do not recommend them as ingredients when the purpose of the stock is to be as versatile as possible. A restaurant that makes multiple stocks every day can afford to get funky with aromatics and put star anise in one of the stocks. For the home cook who might make stock twice a year, I think the better approach is to leave as much out as possible and add it later if you want it for a particular recipe or effect. The scheme I've devised for myself over time (which I'm sure other people devised first) is to have a bunch of this relatively unaromatic stuff around and to aromatize it later, depending on the intended use. For example in Unit 3 of the class (Tuesday) there's a recipe for egg-drop soup. One of the steps is to take some of our basic stock and simmer it with ginger and garlic in order to give it an Asian-style flavor and aroma profile. More later, when we get to that unit.

[Peter B Wolf]

I just like to add when using vegetables to either making 'brown' or 'white' stock, using Celeriac (Root Celery/Knob Celery) vs. Celery stalks, some Rutabaga plus a bit of Parsley Root or a Parsnip or two, will greatly enhance flavors.

Also, I never use Garlic unless I know what I want to use the finished product for.

For a golden color stock, take a large Spanish Onion, slice into three/skin on, place the cut side of these slices directly onto a 'closed/solid top burner' or into an 'ungreased' pan and 'blacken' (literally) the Onion and place into stock while simmering. Great color, plus additional flavor enhancer.

I always use a bit of salt, right at the beginning. Just to take some of the otherwise 'blandness' out. Please note: ONE (1) only, teaspoon for about eight quarts will do