Q&A -- Straining, defatting and reducing Unit 3

[Marlene]

Meaty pork bones? This is what I need to know. For example, I saw some pork hocks at the grocery store today. Those or are they too fatty? What other cuts should I get?

[Fat Guy]

Please do continue to "bore" us with the details. There is virtually no limit to the number of stockmaking photos or the depth of analysis we can engage in here. It's a beautiful thing that this eGullet Culinary Institute course, which was presented in July of 2003, is still "live" a year and a half later. This is what is so right about online culinary instruction. Keep those photos coming.

In terms of pork stock, the secret weapon is the foot, which has an excellent ratio of meat to bones to cartilage to skin and doesn't have very much fat. I believe it was in the Zuni Cafe book that I learned this. Shanks are also a good utility stockmaking cut. But I would ultimately go by price and appearance. You need to be sure you have plenty of bone . . . and plenty of meat. I know it sounds like non-advice, but that's pretty much all there is to it.

One caveat: do not use any smoked or cured pork products when making pork stock. You'll wind up with an overpowering smoke and/or salt flavor if you do. So if the hocks you saw were smoked, as they often are, that's a no-go.

Remember that fat does not contribute to stock and will be removed later in the process, so don't pay for a lot of fat when you buy your pork bones and meat -- this suggestion might influence your selection as between two equally priced cuts, one of which has more fat.

In terms of aromatics, for pork stock, I would support Snowangel's no-carrots suggestion, because pork is naturally "sweet." For beef and chicken stocks, I think they generally are improved by use of carrots as an aromatic, though that is certainly not a hard-and-fast rule.

[fifi]

Now I am getting interested in pork stock. I have a question. Do you brown the pork like you do for beef? Or is it a choice of brown versus light stock as in chicken? (I have made brown chicken stock before by browning thighs and such a bit. It is particularly good for onion soup.)

[fifi]

Sorry for the double post but I just caught Fat Guy's info about the smoked pork products. I do have to say that I have made stock several times from leftovers of smoked turkey and chickens. It is unique and normally used in limited quantities but can add wonderful flavor to braised cabbage, beans, and many other dishes. You just have to know what you are dealing with and how far to go with it. I will say that it is important to remove most of the dark smoked skin before making the stock because that gives too strong a smoke flavor and you might think you are adding asphalt.

[Fat Guy]

For most purposes you are going to want to brown the pork bones. It will make for a somewhat richer, deeper, more "roasty" tasting stock.

[Marlene]

All right. I'll be happy to continue posting.. I'm having a lot of fun learning to make stock. I've got a chicken stock simmering now, and I didn't take pics of the intitial process, but I'll start tomorrow.

I did things a little differently that Fat Guy suggested in making a white stock. I started with about 9 lbs. of legs, thighs and wings and roasted them first, slowly for about an hour. However, I did not baste them with tomato paste.

then I took them out, and deglazed the pan with a little white wine. I removed the skin (well except for the wings. I just gave up trying to remove that skin) from the chicken parts before putting them in the stock pot with onions and just a touch, hardly any of salt.

I'm going to simmer it overnight and do the straining tomorrow.

Pork stock is going to be mid week and I'll make sure I take pictures of the whole process.

[Fat Guy]

I think you will find that outside of formal professional contexts the terms "white" and "brown" stock are not terribly important. Most stocks -- whether chicken, veal, beef, pork, duck or lamb -- will become brown stocks if you simmer them for a good long time. That is the case even if you don't roast the bones. The utility of white stock in home cooking -- even very advanced home cooking -- is so limited that most advanced amateur home cooks will go a lifetime without making a real white stock. So, my suggestion is don't sweat that particular detail.

[Dave the Cook]

You're about as likely to find pig's feet in Oakville as I am to find peameal bacon in a suburban Atlanta Publix.

I'd do three things: 1) if the hocks you saw are unsmoked, load up; 2) buy a pork butt. Find the one with the largest proportion of bone to meat that you can find, if you can make that determination. Give it a spicy rub and cook it for 24 hours at 200 F. With three of you, you'll get at least one two good meals, probably three. (If you can't eat that much in a few days, freeze some of it in the biggest chunks you can manage.) Strip most of the meat off the bone. 3) Buy some pork neck slices, if you can find them, bone-in country style ribs if you can't. Again, go for a high proportion of bone to meat. If you can find ears, grab a couple. If you've done spare ribs recently, I hope you saved the bones (you should, for just this occasion, though spare ribs, and especially baby backs, don't, by themselves, have the cartilage you need).

Of course, with some notice, your butcher might be able to get you feet, so you really should ask. Substitute them pound for pound for the country-style ribs.

Roast (no tomato paste) the shoulder bones and the ribs, and proceed as with beef stock. I'll stand by my "celery is useless" proclamation and I agree with others regarding carrots. I'd use onion (including the ends and skins), and maybe a small amount of garlic (whole, unpeeled cloves).

[Marlene]

thanks. Pork stock will be my next project! In the meantime, the chicken stock is in the fridge chilling. It was cold enough here today to be able to put it outside to cool it down and then into the fridge. I've got two pots of it and tomorrow or Tuesday I'll start reducing it. I'll post all the pics when it's done.

In the meantime, I have a question about the ice cube stock. My beef stock has been in ice cube trays for three days now. I went to take them out of the trays and put them into ziplock bags so I could use my trays for the chicken stock. I found they were still a little "gooey" and were very dificult to release from the tray. In fact, I have permanent dents in my hands from getting them all out. Is there a secret to releasing these little cubes of goodness? Do they take longer to freeze than I think?

[snowangel]

Several bases tried to be covered here.

Marlene, how cold is your freezer? I should add that I usually make a deep freeze worth of stock in the winter, on one of the way sub-zero days, when things freeze instantly outside. But, things highly gelatenous freeze much slower. I forten find that once the cubes are in a ziplock and in the freezer, the bag needs a good whack on the counter to get them apart.

Smoked pork stock. It does have a place. When I have smoked a butt load of butt, some ends up in the freezer, so when my neighbor had a pig roast, I took advantage of them bones. But, as fifi said, it is not for everything. For moistening and hydrating frozen smoked butt, it is the best.

Regular pork stock. Like Fat Guy and Dave the Cook said. YOu need a foot or two. Roast them. NO CARROTS (as I said before, I don't do carrots in any of my stocks, but that just me). When I'm at the Asian market, I ask specially for pork bones. They give me whatever. They are fairly meaty ( I always augment with a few meaty, not fatty country ribs). At the Asian market, they bone a lot of pork, and I usually end up with some shanks, the stuff that is left after you bone a rib chop, whatever.

But, most of all, I use chix stock. I simply can't understand why a person would buy boneless skinless anything. Why pay way more for someone else to do a simple task and get those wonderful bones? What happens to those bones, anyway? Strikes me this latter item is a subject for yet another topic.

[Safran]

You're about as likely to find pig's feet in Oakville as I am to find peameal bacon in a suburban Atlanta Publix.

Marlene, it's time to add another relationship to your circle....you need a butcher who will order you anything your heart desires. Yes, a Girl needs diamonds, but she also needs a butcher. How do you find one? Yellow pages and footwork...you have to interview them, basically, and once you've picked a butcher shop, always work with the same person. He'll get to know you, and will be better able to meet your needs... Also, once you've found this gem, take good care of him.... pamper him, bring him coffee those wild mornings before Thanksgiving or Christmas when you go pick up the turkey you ordered from him...

Edited January 10, 2005 by Safran (log)

[Marlene]

You're about as likely to find pig's feet in Oakville as I am to find peameal bacon in a suburban Atlanta Publix.

Marlene, it's time to add another relationship to your circle....you need a butcher who will order you anything your heart desires. Yes, a Girl needs diamonds, but she also needs a butcher. How do you find one? Yellow pages and footwork...you have to interview them, basically, and once you've picked a butcher shop, always work with the same person. He'll get to know you, and will be better able to meet your needs... Also, once you've found this gem, take good care of him.... pamper him, bring him coffee those wild mornings before Thanksgiving or Christmas when you go pick up the turkey you ordered from him...

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I actually have two butchers here that I switch back and forth with. One is better than the other and he and I are starting to develop a good working relationship. I'll drop in to see him this week and ask about pigs feet etc.

[snowangel]

Don't forget to ask about chicken feet! You may have to buy more than one of each of these items, but if you have a freezer, freeze them on a cookie sheet and then put them in plastic so you can just grab a couple at a time.

[Marlene]

To finish up my chicken stock making project.

As reported earlier, I used wings, legs and thighs to make this stock and I roasted them. I took the skins off before putting them into the pot (although I finally gave up on trying to get the skins off the wings! )and I used onions only, no carrots or celery.

Because I chose to simmer this overnight, plus the roasting, this ends up being a "brown stock" as Fat Guy indicates in his lesson, but as he says, the number of times I need a white stock is so minimal, that I was ok with this.

I didn't take pictures of the roasting and de skinning process

This is the stock after simmering all night. I did find I had almost no skimming do to during the simmering process.

I cooled the stock outside then put it in the fridge. It was two days before I could get back to it to start reducing:

Once I de fatted it, I had two pots of stock ready to reduce. This one looks a little cloudy, but as it heated up, it cleared up somewhat. Again, because I was reducing this to ice cube trays, I didn't worry too much about cloudiness:

I started out using 9 lbs of bones. After reduction, I ended up with 4 ice cube trays and 1 container that went into the fridge to gel. I checked on it this morning, and it has gelled quite nicely.

So, two stock making projects successfully completed. I'm off to talk to my butcher today or tomorrow to discuss appropriate pork pieces for my pork stock making project.

[bleachboy]

Your stock looks great, Marlene! Welcome to the fold!

I, too, usually don't have to do much skimming at all when I make stock. I wonder why that is? I do tend to wash the chicken parts before I throw them in the pot, maybe that's it.

[Marlene]

Somebody told me it had to do with roasting the bones first.

Pork bone question:

I'm going to do a crown roast of pork this weekend. should I use the bones from that for a pork stock or are they not the right kind of bones? Or should they be uncooked/unroasted bones?

[bleachboy]

I've never made PORK stock specifically, but I know for beef or chicken stock I'll throw ANYTHING in there assuming it's not feathers or the moo.

Save all your scraps! Unless told otherwise, I feel anything's game. If you roast the bones, you've just added another element of flavor to your stock! Congratulations!

[Marlene]

Pork stock will commence tomorrow. I have 8 or 9 lbs of fresh pork hocks with good bones and skin. I'll remove the skin, take off the fat, then roast the skin and bones together. I'll take pictures of all of this one.

[snowangel]

I, too am a firm believer that all bones are fair game. I often mix previously roasted meat bones with new bones and meat. Sometimes I roast the new bones, sometimes not. (Depends on how lazy I'm feeling. In any case, I sure don't worry about how "cleaan" the old, previously roasted bones are. I once absconded with the carcass of a pig from a pig roast for smoked pork stock.

Pork stock is good. I'm surprised at how often I reach for it.

[Safran]

Pork stock will commence tomorrow.  I have 8 or 9 lbs of fresh pork hocks with good bones and skin.  I'll remove the skin, take off the fat, then roast the skin and bones together.  I'll take pictures of all of this one.

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Am looking forward to those pictures, Marlene. I've never done pork stock so this is another cooking class for me!

[Marlene]

well there certainly won't be any problem cooling off the stock outside. -23C with windchill factor of -35 today and more of the same for tomorrow.

Now could somebody get my chicken stock out of those damn ice cube trays?

[snowangel]

What I did was fill a tray with some warm water, dip the bottom of the ice cube trays in the water and the cubes popped right out.

[Marlene]

Thanks Snowangel, I'll try that.

Ok, pork stock is now simmering on the stove for overnight. I had two pans of these pork hocks:

I roasted them without tomato sauce:

In the stockpot are onions, a few peppercorns and a small amount of kosher salt.

i was going to take the skin off and roast that separately, but I confess, I got very lazy and didn't.

It will simmer overnight and I'll see where we are in the morning!

[Fat Guy]

You're going to be happy with it.

In terms of the question of scraps, for the advanced-amateur majority among our membership a broad range of bones and trimmings -- cooked, fresh, frozen -- will work very well. In some situations, however, you will want to start with only raw, fresh ingredients and do all the roasting and cooking to your specifications. For example in very advanced restaurant cooking at the high end, where the sauces are carefully calibrated and visual appearance and clarity of flavor are critical, you specifically don't want random additional complexity or inconsistent ranges of flavors. Not that any professional sauciers would need to use this eGCI class, but it's worth noting that "anything goes" is a good attitude for stockmaking at our level but not necessarily at all levels.

[MobyP]

I was intersted to see in a couple of Ducasse books that they don't use wines in their Jus. I thought this would have been mandatory - but I guess they're going for as pure a concentration of the bone/meat maillard flavours as possible.