Looking for the root, the low down, the place it all starts from? Here’s our take…
I’ll tell you then.
What’s really cool is when the foremost Internet site for the food, history, travel through, and appreciation of all things Basque, EuskoGuide, tweets our recipe for authentic Basque Piperrada as the recipe you should check out and cook.
That’s cool!
We are honored and humbled by this wonderful gesture – Big Thanks to EuskoGuide, from M and I!
I heard a quip on NPR the other day to the effect that their listeners were fueled heavily by the ubiquitous ‘Super Food’, kale. When even McDonalds sports a kale salad offering, things are certainly reaching a saturation point, (granted, that salad sports more calories, fat, and sodium than a double Big Mac, so maybe the health benefits aren’t as evident there). They will be, however, with our wonderful kale and Sofrito relish.
That said, kale does indeed stack up pretty mightily in the Good For You scale. Kale is nutrient dense, sporting copious quantities of vitamins K, A, C, B1, B2, B3, and B6, as well as trace minerals like manganese, copper, calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, and phosphorus. All of that at roughly 30 calories per cup, sporting 6 grams of carbs, (2 of which are fiber), and 3 grams of protein. What little fat kale contains is largely alpha linolenic acid, AKA Omega-3.
Kale, Brassica Oleracea, stems from the Cabbage family, and is cousin to other great veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens and Brussels sprouts. All those nutrients and that family tree point to the telltale metallic, slightly funky odor this wonderful stuff exudes.
There’s a myriad of variants, with a range of colors and leaf shapes from flat to quite curly. It’s pretty, frankly, and gets darn near as much attention for an ornamental plant as it does for human fodder. We’re going to offer a nice option for adding this stuff to your diet, and maybe even getting folks who think they don’t like kale to try it. The depth and breadth of favors here belay the simplicity of the dish.
Here’s our take on a roasted kale and sofrito blend. It makes a great side, or a topping for shredded pork, beef, or chicken, or can even be used as a sandwich stuffing. As a bonus, you’ve got a great classic sofrito recipe; this root of many a Spanish, Portuguese, South American, and Caribbean dishes is a star all by itself, and the recipe below will make more than enough to spare.
For the Sofrito, (makes about a cup)
1 medium Tomato
1 medium sweet Onion
2-3 small sweet Peppers, (the miniatures are best)
1-2 Jalapeño Chiles
3 cloves Garlic
1/4 Cup Cilantro
Avocado Oil, (EVOO is fine too)
Stem, seed, and fine dice the onion, tomato, peppers and chiles.
Rough chop the cilantro.
Peel garlic, mince, then add a good pinch of salt and mash with the side of a chef’s knife.
In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of avocado oil and allow to heat through.
Add the onion, chiles, and peppers and sauté until soft and the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and sauté until the raw garlic smell has dissipated, about 1 minute.
Add the tomato, stir to incorporate.
Cover the pan with a tight fitting lid and allow the blend to cook until the free moisture has evaporated, about 3 to 5 minutes.
Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl, and stir the cilantro in well.
Allow to cool.
Sofrito will keep for a couple of days, refrigerated in an airtight container.
For the Roasted Kale
4 Cups Kale, chopped.
2 Tablespoons Avocado Oil, (again EVOO is fine)
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Rinse, trim ends and big stem pieces from the kale, then rough chop.
In a mixing bowl, combine kale with oil, a pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper; make sure the kale is nice and evenly coated with oil.
Mix well by hand, then spread evenly onto a baking sheet.
Slide the baking sheet into a middle rack in preheated oven.
Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes until kale is beginning to crisp.
Remove from oven and low to cool, tossing once or twice with a couple of forks.
Combine the roasted kale with 1/2 cup sofrito and toss gently to incorporate.
You can add a bit more or less as you prefer.
Can be served hot, or chilled, as you prefer.
Everybody has a go-to seasoning or two in their kitchen. My Sis, Ann Lovejoy, is a great finder and sharer of such things. The back of our stove is where our collection lies. There, you’ll find a couple of ground chiles, naturally – our homegrown Texas Tabascos and a smoked blend. There are three different peppers, a four berry blend (red, white, green, and black), Grains of Paradise, and smoked black. Far and away, the most common thing you’ll find are salts. There are two Annie found, from a cottage maker in Oregon, a fennel flower, and a basil variety. There’s also flaked, and kosher, Himalayan pink, house made celery, and our own take on Jane’s Krazy Salt.
There really was a Jane behind this cottage industry turned international food producer. Jane Semans, a “tiny white-haired, delightfully wacky grandmother,” mixed seasoning blends in her Overbrook, Pennsylvania kitchen, and began sharing the goods with friends and neighbors. In 1962, she trademarked Jane’s Krazy Mixed Up Salt, and the rest is history.
The company that bears her name now makes a myriad of seasoning blends that sell well all over the world. I like supporting good companies, and we’ve done so with Jane’s for years. Her Krazy salt has been our go-to blend, used every day, from breakfast through dinner. Why is it that salt, in some form, is far and away the most used seasoning?
Sodium Chloride, AKA, table salt, does far more than simply make food taste salty. Adding salt suppresses some tastes as well. It’s generally agreed that humans perceive five tastes, sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. Salt acts to suppress bitter in many food combinations, making things palatable that might not be otherwise. Some have argued that salt also enhances other favors, but this is somewhat of a misnomer. Scientists who study such things have determined that salt does not chemically enhance anything – that said, it is known that adding salt reduces the activity of water within the ingredients we add it to, which allows us humans greater perception of various volatile aromatics – in other words, salt enhances by suppression, once again.
Here’s a practical example of this trait – Check out just about any jar of lemon pepper seasoning you can find – chances are good that the first ingredient in most of them is salt – that’s done not only because salt is tasty, but because lemon pepper is made with lemon peel, and if you’re not über careful about harvesting peel and not pith, (the yellow as opposed to the white), what you get is in fact quite bitter. Salt tames the potentially off putting bitter notes and generates a harmonious blend.
And then there are the health benefits – Yes, health benefits, of ingesting salt. Humans need water to survive, more than any other element. Salt plays a crucial role in distributing water throughout our bodies. Proper sodium content in our bods, (and potassium too), is critical to everything from digestion to brain function. Go a bit overboard, and your kidneys will excrete excess sodium for you.
On top of that little scientific aside, the profusion of natural salts for cooking available nowadays brings a wealth of trace flavor notes from the various minerals attached thereto. That is the root of why salts mixed with other things we like are so prominent on the back ledge of my stove.
As for that Jane’s, well, I like it a lot, so naturally, I poured a bunch of it into a glass bowl and poked around to see what made it tick. Once I knew what was inside, my gears started turning toward the thought of improvement. There are other analyses and recipes of Jane’s out there, for the record; I read none of them, preferring to let my eyes, fingers, and taste buds do the work. Here’s what I discovered.
Jane’s is, of course, first and foremost salt. What they use appears to me to be coarse kosher, which is perfect for herbed salt blends like this. The larger, jagged grains capture ground or crunched herbs and spices well, making for a blend that remains homogeneous in a shaker. The other ingredients are granulated garlic and onion, ground black pepper, celery salt, crushed red chiles, and sage. Knowing the proper percentages of each ingredient are of course vital to recreating a blend – you’ll see below, both what strikes us as a spot on duplicate of the real McCoy, and our preferred version.
While it might seem like plagiarism to copy such a thing, it’s really not. Sure, it’s somebody’s baby as it stands, but it’s also kinda like a guitar lick – Les Paul’s son Gene related his father’s love of all things Django Reinhardt. He tells of his father sitting at the kitchen table, practicing Django’s licks over and over again. One night, during a performance, the son heard the father unravel that lick in the middle of soloing for another song. When he asked about it afterwards, Les smiled and said, “It’s my lick now.” As a guitar player and chef, I know this to be true. It’s how things work. The fact is that the number of folks who can accurately play that lick, or dissect that recipe faithfully is relatively small. It’s a tribute, a nod, a starting point for other things – I’m sure Jane wouldn’t mind.
Before we build the full meal deal, let’s address the celery salt that goes into it. You can buy this stuff, of course, but small batches of home made are far superior, and fun to make. Any herb(s), fresh or dried, can be mixed with salt to provide a nice, fresh, custom blend. How much you use depends on your preferred taste. In general, a ratio of salt to dried herb anywhere from 1:1 to 4:1 will work – that ratio depends on the potency of your herbs – for celery salt, you want quite a bit more than you would for, say, Rosemary. You’ll want to experiment a bit to determine the mix that best highlights the herb. If you’re using fresh, as with this celery salt, you’ll need to thoroughly dry the herbs before blending. Depending on what you’re using, you’ll want to prepare quite a bit more of the final volume you’re after – for the celery salt, you’ll see that I used about a lightly packed cup of fresh leaves in order to get an appropriate amount of dried.
House Made Celery Salt
1 Cup fresh Celery Leaf
1/4 Cup coarse Kosher Salt
Preheat oven to warm.
Trim celery leaves from stalks and excess stems.
Spread leaf on a dry baking sheet.
Allow leaves to dry thoroughly, about 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Hand crush leaves, then run them through a single layer mesh strainer. Discard the stuff that doesn’t make it through.
Blend leaves and salt in a small mixing bowl, transfer to a glass jar.
If the blend gets a bit sticky, gently tap the jar to loosen things up.
Very Jane-Like Salt Blend
This is, for our taste, about as close to the original as you can get.
1/4 Cup coarse Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon granulated Garlic
2 teaspoons ground Black Pepper
2 teaspoons granulated Onion
1 teaspoon Celery Salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed Cayenne Chile
1/4 teaspoon crushed Sage
Blend all, and transfer to a glass jar for storage.
UrbanMonique’s Wacky Salt
This is our spin on the original – peppery, smoky, and bold.
2 Tablespoons coarse Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon Alderwood Smoked Salt
1 Tablespoon Four Pepper Blend, (black, white, green, red)
1 Tablespoon Granulated Garlic
2 teaspoons granulated Onion
2 teaspoons Celery Salt
1 teaspoon Smoked Paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground Smoked Chiles
1/2 teaspoon crushed Sage
Blend all, and transfer to a glass jar for storage.
The difference between authentic, regional Chinese cooking and the Americanized versions most of us were exposed to in the Twentieth century is vast indeed. That said, we were raised on the latter before discovering the former, so there are times when we jones for the cheap seats. Nonetheless, there are genuine roots to all that Americanized stuff as well – Even sweet and sour whatever, or chop suey. Dishes made famous, (infamous?), here were generally a far cry from their authentic roots, due predominantly to a lack of proper ingredients. While Chinese immigrants often brought, grew, or made the tools and supplies needed for authentic cooking with them, those were neither truly desired by nor fed to American diners for many decades.
Happily, here in the 21st century, most, if not all of what you need to cook authentic regional Chinese dishes is readily available. Even in relatively small towns, there is often a thriving Asian market, and if not, it’s all there in online stores. Naturally, the recipe resources available to home chefs has blossomed as well; there are myriad cookbooks for virtually every Chinese cooking style and region, let alone classes, online videos, and groups dedicated to the exploration thereof.
Without a doubt one of, if not the most beloved Americanized dishes, is fried rice, and for good reason. The combination of proteins, veggies, fruit, and sauces is almost limitless, and few dishes are more satisfying when made well. Add the fact that it’s a perfect use for leftover rice, and you’ve got a perennial winner. Naturally, this begs the question – Where did fried rice actually originate?
Frying rice in some form or another has been done for as long as man has been eating cereals, and recipes harken as far back as the sixth century AD. The most well known variety is often called Yangzhou, after the city in the east central coast of China; it includes roast pork, prawns, scallions, and green peas. This is still considered one of, if not the signature version of fried rice, served at Chinese restaurants throughout the world, and called either House, or Special fried rice. That popularity doesn’t necessarily apply to China herself – There, myriad variants of the dish are found, especially in the south where rice is a major staple – Everything from heavily sauced Fujian and Cantonese versions, to Chāhan flavored with Katsuobushi, (Bonito flakes), and the red and white, yin-yang Yuan style. And that’s just China – There are signature versions from Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Europe. There’s a Hawaiian version with Spam, and an ‘American’ version in Thailand served with hot dogs and catsup, and more varieties from South America and Cuba as well.
While you certainly can and should check out those recipes, the ubiquity of the dish certainly encourages exploration in the kitchen. Like spaghetti sauce, or mac and cheese, every household has a signature version that’s the best, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t add one of your own.
The real trick to great fried rice lies no so much in the add-ons, but in what rice you use – for the best results, you want cold, day old rice – or even frozen, (and that should be all the reason you need to save leftover rice every chance you get). The reason is moisture, or lack thereof. If you’ve ever tried making fried rice from fresh stuff, chances are you ended up with something soggier than you wanted. Using refrigerated, day old allows the rice grains to dry out somewhat, yielding nicely separated grains, and the slightly chewy texture we’re after. For longer storage, freeze rice in a ziplock bag with the air sucked out. Either way, once you’ve got your base material squared away, building whatever you like becomes a quick and easy task.
Next question – what kind of rice is best? Long grained white will dependably cook up plump, distinct grains. This is due to a couple of important starch molecules, namely amylose, and amylopectin. Long grain white rice contains the highest concentration of amylose. This starch does not gelatinize when rice cooks, so varieties rich in it yield that fluffy stuff we’re after. Amylose also crystallizes and hardens when rice is cooled after cooking, but melts readily upon reheating, again lending itself perfect to frying over high heat. Amylopectin, on the other hand, makes rice that is sticky and softer, and while that’s perfect for risotto or paella, it’s not so much for fried. Medium and short grain varieties are richer in this starch, while long grain white has significantly less. Thai jasmine rice is also long grained, but has less amylose, so can get a bit sticky. If you like the slightly sweeter taste of jasmine, Basmati might be a better choice for frying.
And finally before we cook, what about the best vessel for the job – to wok or not to wok, that is the question. The answer is, not absolutely necessary, but if you want the real McCoy, then only a wok over a really hot flame will give you that certain je ne sais quoi – the slightly grilled, smoky, almost burnt flavor notes great fried rice flaunts. When the weather allows here, we cook ours in a wok over the same propane powered burner we use for roasting coffee, outside – There’s no way I know of to get a hot enough flame inside, unless you’ve got a pretty serious commercial quality gas range.
Cooking in a high carbon steel wok also imparts a certain flavor note of its own, just as cast iron does. It’s a subtle thing, but certainly notable and for my mind, highly desirable. If you don’t own a wok and decide to buy one, go with a 14″ like ours, with a flat bottom and double handles, one long, one short. Take great care to read up on the proper initial cleaning and seasoning of a new wok – failure to do so can literally sink your investment before you even get started. Now, all that said, you can do a perfectly fine job in a heavy skillet, but in any event, use the biggest thing you’ve got in your kitchen – a big cast iron skillet or Dutch oven is a fine alternative.
Alright, now that we have our pan chosen, here are a few basic guidelines for the overall process.
Get your pan as hot as you can safely get it, and use an oil with a high smoke point, like peanut or avocado. Those elusive grilled/smoky notes depend on it.
Use the biggest pan you’ve got – this is why even good home woks are 14″ – an overloaded pan won’t get hot enough to do the job right. If you’re cooking for more than two, do so in batches, as you would when deep frying.
Don’t overdo the sauce – Too much of a good thing will overpower the flavor of delicate ingredients, and will make your rice mushy as well. Note: most soy sauce you find in stores is considered dark, even if it doesn’t say so – Light soy is notably saltier and more assertive in taste, so should be used sparingly.
Alright – Here’s our version to get you started.
UrbanMonique House Fried Rice
4-5 Cups cooked Rice, (1 Cup of dry long grain white should yield just right)
1/2 Pound Chinese Pork, fine diced
2 large Eggs
4-6 Scallions, trimmed and diced
1/2 Cup Chinese Long Beans, trimmed and diced
1/4 Cup Carrot, fine diced
1/4 Cup sweet Pepper, diced
1/4 Cup Green Peas
1-2 Tablespoons Avocado or Peanut Oil
For the Sauce
1 Tablespoon steaming hot Water
1 Tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
1 teaspoon Honey or Agave Nectar
1/2 teaspoon Szechuan Pepper
1/4 teaspoon Smoked Sweet Paprika
In a non-reactive mixing bowl, combine all sauce ingredients and whisk with a fork to incorporate. Allow flavors to marry for about 10 minutes before use.
Scramble eggs until fluffy, remove from heat and set aside.
Preheat your wok/pan over medium-high until it’s fully heated through.
Gently massage the cold rice by hand, to break up any and all clumps.
Turn the heat up to high, add a tablespoon of oil to the wok and let it heat through.
Add the carrots and peppers to the hot oil and fry for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add the scallions, peas, and long beans and fry for another couple of minutes, until heated through.
Add the rice and pork, then fry for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
Add the sauce and the eggs, stir to incorporate and heat through.
Serve piping hot.
Twice in recent editions of The New Yorker magazine, I read about folks out to eat in the city so big they had to name it twice ordering Chicken Paillard. That struck me as odd, because that’s not even remotely a modern dish. You won’t find it on the menu in Seattle or Boston, I’d bet, (Although now that it was in the New Yorker twice, you just might). The dish got me thinking, and then, naturally, I felt compelled to dive into it a bit.
That Chicken Paillard is going to arrive at your table as a thin cutlet, most likely pan seared or butter poached. You’d think, at first glance, that this will be a fairly unremarkable dish. Yet when you take that first bite, your surprise and delight alarms go off – This chicken is tender, juicy – Remarkable, in fact. How does that work in something that looks so pedestrian? What we have here is a classic example of making something look simple. There’s more than meets the eye.
Paillard is a relatively old French term, and the really odd thing is that the root meaning is ‘bawdy’. How that segued into a trendy dish, I don’t know – the culinary variant refers to a thinly sliced or pounded piece of meat. Nowadays, the process is most often called escalope, (or escallope, if you like). That term first appeared in French cooking back in the 1600s, and harkens back to the mollusk that shares the name. A l’escalope meant, in the style of an escalope, such that whatever was being prepared thus was flattened to resemble that noble sea creature.
Doing this to a piece of flesh has practical benefits other than visual legerdemain. Thinning chicken, beef, or pork to an even thickness equates to even cooking, which is of course, always desirable. Secondly, thinner also means faster cooking, and that means easier; also a desirable thing. Thinner also, as strange as it may sound, equals juicier as well; faster cooking time enables that trick. And finally, the amount of pounding I’ll advocate for does indeed tenderize your proteins as well. All of that means that this is a technique definitely worth doing.
The process of escalloping is generally perceived as whacking on a hunk of protein until it’s flat, but that’s frankly not a best practice. Take a nice plump chicken breast like the one I’ll work with herein. That thing is a good 2″ thick as it comes from the butcher; flattening that out with a meat hammer would wear out a veteran roofer, let alone a home cook. Secondly, that much pounding goes well beyond tenderizing and enters the realm of making meat jelly – not very appealing, that. With all those warnings in mind, here’s how it’s done right – A slicer or carver works best for this operation, but any well sharpened blade of 5″ or more will suffice.
On a cutting board, lay the chicken breast skin side down.
Carefully remove the breast from the bone, (bag and freeze bones for future stock production.)
Trim any excess fat, skin flaps, etc.
Make a single cut, lengthwise, roughly half way through the thickness of the breast.
Turn your knife 90°, (parallel to the breast), and slice evenly from that first cut toward the outer edge of the breast, stopping when what’s left uncut is roughly equal to the thickness of the remaining breast.
Repeat that cut on the other half of the breast.
Now you can gently unfold the breast to one roughly uniform butterfly.
Cover with parchment or waxed paper, and use the flat side of a meat hammer to gently pound the beast to uniform thickness.
Turn meat hammer to the pointy side and very gently, evenly tap the top surface of the breast to tenderize.
You can and should keep skin intact if you’re going to butter poach or pan sear, for added flavor and moisture retention.
If you’re doing a roulade, remove the skin and save it for making schmaltz.
There you have it – a perfectly escalloped breast ready for cooking. Again, the method allows you to cook the protein as is, or roll it up into some thing a bit fancier if you wish. Here are a couple recipes covering both options. Another fringe benefit of the method is that it notably stretches your yield – A single, plump chicken breast will feed two well, potentially with leftovers remaining.
Classic Chicken Paillard
1 – 2 fresh Chicken Breasts, bone in and skin on.
1 small Lemon
3 Ounces Unsalted Butter
1 Tablespoon Wondra Flour
1 Tablespoon Avocado Oil
Pinch fresh Lemon Thyme
Sea Salt
Grains of Paradise
Escalope the chicken breast(s) as per above directions.
Chiffonade fresh sage, (dried is fine too).
In a heavy sauté pan over medium heat, combine butter and oil and melt/heat through.
Slice breast into halves lengthwise.
Season lightly with sea salt and grains of paradise.
Lightly dust breasts evenly with Wondra.
Carefully place breast skin side down in hot sauté pan, and gently press to create full contact with the pan.
Allow to cook for about 2 minutes, then lift one side of pan slightly to pool the butter and oil blend.
Spoon hot butter and oil evenly over the top of the breast for about another 2 minutes, until pan side of breast is nicely browned.
Remove breast from pan and allow to rest for 3-5 minutes, and serve.
There’s the deceptively simple way to take advantage of this wonderful method. Now, here’s one that sounds fussy, maybe even difficult, but truly is neither – It’s easy, fun, and oh, so rewarding. Roulade en Croute means simply rolled and covered with a crust. It’s delicious, offers myriad variations, and quite lovely. While house made is always preferable, I’ll share a dirty little secret about pie crust – Check out Pillsbury refrigerated crusts – There’s virtually nothing bad in them, they taste great, and if you’re pressed for time, they’ll more than do in a pinch.
Chicken Roulade en Croute
1 Large Chicken Breast
Single Pie Crust
1/2 Cup Aged Provolone, shredded
1/2 Cup chopped dried, sweetened Cranberries
1/2 Cup roasted, chopped Hazelnuts
2 teaspoons fresh Sage, (dried is fine)
Jane’s Crazy Salt
Fresh ground Pepper
Prepare escaloped chicken breast.
In a dry sauté pan over medium heat, toss chopped hazelnuts until lightly browned. Remove from heat, set aside to cool.
Spread even layers of cheese, nuts, cranberries, and sage over the breast.
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Roll out pie crust to roughly 10″
Gently grab one of the long edges of the breast and form a roll.
Transfer rolled breast to center of crust.
Lap edges of crust over breast, seal with a little water.
Fold crust ends in on themselves neatly.
Place breast on a heavy skillet.
Lightly rub a little butter over surface.
Season with Jane’s and pepper.
Poke a few lines or holes in crust – You can also cut some small pieces and do a nice design over top – a flower, plant, etc looks pretty cool when done.
Place pan on a centered rack in oven.
Bake for 20 minutes, then check internal temperature with an instant read thermometer. When temp reaches 155° F, remove roulade from heat and allow to rest in the pan for 10 minutes.
Cut generous slices and serve.
Although you won’t need it, a simple pan sauce certainly doesn’t hurt anything.
Over medium heat, deglaze the pan you cooked the roulade in with a half cup of dry white wine. Stir up all the little cooked bits, then add a quarter cup of chicken stock, (or demi glacé, if you heeded our stock making post). Allow that to simmer and reduce for a couple of minutes until the sauce thickens slightly.
Melt in and incorporate a tablespoon of butter, and drizzle hot over the roulade.
Nephew Ian put in another topic request, this one for making homemade stock. If we had to pick one thing that separates really good restaurant quality food from most home cooked stuff, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to chose the making and judicious use of homemade stock.
The difference between homemade and anything store bought is night and day; you’ll enjoy far greater depth and breadth of flavor, as well as the common sense step of keeping and using the stuff you need to make stock with, instead of throwing it away – Everything from the ends of trimmed veggies, to fish racks, bones, and carcasses are the stuff of great stock. Making stock at home is neither particularly laborious or complex. Once you get in the groove of thinking about using your leftovers accordingly, it’s a pretty simple process.
First things first, let’s define stock, vis-a-vis its thinner cousin, broth, and thicker progeny, demi-glacé. In simplest terms, stock comes from bones, while broth comes from meat. Think of stock as the deeper and more complex root of superior soup, sauce, risotto, and a thousand other variants. When the first taste of one of those dishes blows you away, it’s a safe bet there’s rich, house-made stock at the core. There’s an enhanced mouth feel and richness to stock, brought forth by the gelatin released from bones, that you just don’t get anywhere else.
Preparation for making stocks begins with saving the ingredients; Don’t throw out the bones, carcass, etc of your last wonderful roast, chicken, turkey, ribs, etc – Keep ’em and freeze ’em and set ’em aside for future use. You can also certainly ask for beef/veal/etc bones from your butcher; with a resurgence in small, local butchers in full swing across this country, do your due diligence and see if you’ve got one close by – They’re sure to be prepared and happy to get you what you need.
For hundreds of years, the go-to restaurant stock was veal, or beef. Nowadays, Dark Chicken Stock has replaced those more traditional variants as the root of great soup, sauce, etc.. It’s probably healthier for you than beef or veal, and frankly, it’s far more versatile; we use it almost daily in our kitchen. For the record – The sole difference between light and dark chicken stock is whether or not the bones have been roasted. Also, If you prefer to do beef, veal, pork, etc, you’ll want about 3-4 pounds of bones to substitute for the chicken carcasses used herein.
What you’re going to do is a three part process – slow roast, simmer, clarification. The slow roast will breakdown and deepen favors from the carcasses or bones and a trinity of aromatic bases, (in this case, mirepoix – onion, carrot, and celery), and a touch of tomato paste. The slow roast works on everything, breaking down cartilage, marrow, fat, skin – drawing out the essence of the veggies with slow caramelization. The tomato paste enhances color and flavor, and the acid therein helps break down connective tissue in the bones, aiding in the production of usable gelatin for your stock.
You’ll need the following to build a good stock pot worth of the real deal.
2-4 Chicken Carcasses
2 medium Yellow or Sweet Onions
3-5 Carrots
3-5 stalks Celery
Small can Tomato Paste
Olive or Avocado Oil
Sea Salt
Fresh ground Pepper
Decent Cheesecloth, (60 to 90 pound is best)
3+ Gallon Stock Pot
Colander, Strainer, or Chinoise
Slotted or perforated Spoon
Preheat oven to 250° F.
Have carcasses or bones defrosted and close to room temperature.
Rough chop onion, celery, and carrots to a final mirepoix of 50% onion, and 25% each celery and carrot – You don’t need to be exact. Rough chop means fairly uniform pieces of each, about 3/4″ big.
Spread the mire poix evenly across a rimmed baking sheet.
Season veggies with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of oil.
Break down carcasses minimally, just enough that you can evenly cover the mire poix.
Using a spatula, dab a thin coating of tomato paste over the carcasses; this doesn’t have to be thick – use a whole, small can for a batch of this size, evenly spread.
Slow roast everything for about 3 hour, flipping once about half way through, until bones have browned, and veggies are caramelized.
Remove everything from the oven and carefully transfer into a stockpot over medium-high heat. Add water until you’ve got a good two inches over the top of everything in the pot.
Add,
3-4 Bay Leaves
Teaspoon of Sea Salt
10-12 whole Pepper berries
Once the water begins to boil, reduce the heat to low and continue simmering for at least 6 hours, (and as much as 8.)
As fat and associated scum rises to the surface, (If you see Dick Cheney, push him back under), skim that off with a slotted or perforated spoon.
You’ll lose water to evaporation; keep adding fresh to maintain that couple of inches over the contents.
Remove pot from stove, and allow the stock to cool to room temperature. You can place the whole pot in an ice bath, (50% – 50% ice and water), to cool it faster; this is also safer than simply waiting it out.
Cover and refrigerate overnight, (Or stick it out on the back porch, covered, if it’s cold enough out).
In the morning, you’ll find a nice, solid layer of fat has formed on the top of your stock; carefully ladle that off and discard.
Now comes clarification;
Set up a colander, strainer, or chinoise, with a large mixing bowl beneath.
Pour the contents of your stock pot carefully through; this first pass will remove the big chunks from the stock.
Discard the bones, veggies, etc.
Now you’ll need decent cheesecloth at this point, as it’s time to really clarify.
Line your straining device with a layer or two of cheesecloth big enough to drape over the edges somewhat; place the stock pot or mixing bowl underneath.
Slowly pour the stock through the cheesecloth.
After each pass, rinse the vessel you poured from, and the cheesecloth, before making another pass.
You’ll want at least 6 – 8 passes to get to reasonable clarity, something like this – beautiful, flavorful house made stock.
We freeze stock in quart sized freezer bags; this is a good size to use as the basis for soups and stews. You can store some refrigerated, in an airtight container, for up to 5 days. Some should most definitely be further reduced into demi-glacé, and here’s why.
In his epic tale of back of house whackiness, Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain wrote of demi-glacé, “Freeze this stuff in an ice-cube tray, pop out a cube or two as needed, and you are in business – you can rule the world.” And when you’re right, you’re right. If you knew how many amazing sauces spring from this one source, you’d be gob smacked. While demi-glacé is traditionally made from veal or beef stock, you certainly can and should make it from chicken stock – Like the stock, chicken demi-glacé is amazingly versatile. Traditional demi-glacé is served over beef, veal, or lamb – chicken glacé not only works on those proteins, it’s amazing with chicken, pork, veggies, potatoes, and rice or risotto.
There’re a myriad of ways to make it; doing so with fresh stock is one of the easiest and most satisfying, and it only makes sense, when you’ve already been working through stock production. You can, if you like, simply return some stock to a sauté pan over medium heat, turn it down to a bare simmer after it gets bubbling, and reduce that by roughly 50% – What you’ll have is a more concentrated, intense iteration of the stock you just made, and that is indeed demi-glacé, no matter what pretentious foodies tell you. That said, putting a few more refinements in the mix will pay big dividends. Here’s how.
2 Cups fresh Chicken Stock
1 Cup Old Vine Zinfandel
2 Tablespoons minced Shallot
2 teaspoons Lemon Thyme
1 teaspoon Grains of Paradise, (Black Peppercorns are fine)
1 Bay Leaf
In a large sauté pan over medium heat, combine all ingredients, except the butter.
As the mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has reduced by roughly 50%.
Test thickness by pouring some of the demi-glacé from a spoon; it should leave a noticeably thick, even coat on the spoon.
Remove from heat and cool to room temp, (again, a mixing bowl in an ice bath does a great job).
Transfer demi-glacé to a pop-out ice cube tray, filling evenly. Slip the tray inside a gallon freezer bag, press excess air out, (I suck all the air out to avoid freezer burn), and freeze.
When you want an amazing pan sauce, pull out your tray, pop out a cube or two, and melt over medium heat. Finish with a thumbnail sized hunk of butter, and viola. You can also add a cube to boiling water for rice or veggies. A cube add to your regular gravy ingredients is especially delightful – Potential uses are as broad as your imagination.
UrbanMonique 