Stocking Up

It's been way too long since my last post.  I somehow thought when I stopped working to focus on school I would have all this free time to get work done around the house, get crafty and most of all have time to experiment in the kitchen more.  Boy was I wrong!  Don't get me wrong, I am loving school even more than I thought I would but it has been keeping me super busy.  I have also been lucky enough to have quite a few cake orders in the past month which has kept me in the kitchen caking away most Thursdays and Fridays.  In just over a month in culinary school I have learned so much and I am truly excited to go to school everyday to see what new skills I can pick up.  I also have to admit that the taste tests that come at the end of every class doesn't hurt either!

I started cooking because of my family and family is what keeps me in the kitchen.  Family always comes first for me so when Jason's grandfather passed away I knew being there for him was much more important than being in class that night.  Unfortunately, by missing one class, I missed a big lesson on making stocks.  Normally I could just go in before the next class and make it up, but because you can't just quickly whip up a stock I was able to make one at home and take some photos of the process.  I figured since I was making it and photographing it I might as well blog it to share with all of you. 

Before I started my reading for this rotation I was under the impression that a white stock was chicken or fish and a brown stock was beef or veal.  Actually, a white stock is a light colored stock made with chicken,beef, fish or veal bones simmered in water with vegetables and seasonings.  A brown stock is a rich colored stock made from chicken, beef, veal or game bones and vegetables, all of which are caramelized before they are simmered in water with seasonings.  Since I have made white stock many times I decided to try a brown stock this time.

Brown stock

7 pounds beef bones (I used pork bones and I only had about 5 pounds)

6 oz tomato paste

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

1 cup chopped carrots

2 cups red wine

20 peppercorns

5 garlic cloves

5 bay leaves

rind from a wedge of Parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried thyme

1 1/2 gallons water

The first step in a brown stock is to roast the bones.  I put mine in a roasting pan at 375 for one hour.  Here's what they look like after an hour in the oven.

While the bones were cooking, I chopped up my mirepoix (the mixture of onions, celery and carrots).

After the first hour I brushed the bones in tomato paste.

And then I added the mirepoix on top of the bones.  I love all the fun color!

Here's what it looked like when everything was finished roasting.

I took the roasting pan out of the oven and deglazed the pan with the red wine to get all the fond (the delicious little browned bits) off the bottom. 

I let this sit for a little bit while I got all my spices together.  The recipe I was basing this off of didn't call for the parmesan rind but I almost always have fresh parmesan at home and I think the rind adds a nice little salty nutty flavor to the stock.

I added the water and the spices to a large stock pot and them transferred the bones, veggies and red wine from the roasting pan into the pot.  I let the stock simmer for four hours and then removed the bones (Gus was very happy when he got a bowl full of bones to eat the next morning) and strained the stock to remove all the solids.

The stock turned out great.  It had a much more rich taste than the white stocks I have made in the past.  It was definitely more work but I think it was worth it in the end.

Once I had the stock made I figured that I would make some soup with some of it and freeze the rest. Since I still have a bunch of beef roasts left in my freezer; beef vegetable soup it is!



Beef Vegetable Soup

Arm Roast (I think mine was about 2.5 pounds)

Butcher's Rub (spice mix from the Tea and Spice Exchange)

7 cups brown stock

28oz can diced tomatoes

1 large red onion chopped

3 carrots chopped

3 celery stalks chopped

1 green pepper chopped

1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped

1 Tbs italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

I started by coating the roast in the butcher's rub and cooking it on a rack in my roaster with a little water at 350 for 90 minutes.  I let it cool a bit and then shredded it up and put it back in the roaster (I had removed all the fat from cooking the roast and turned the heat down to 250.

I washed, peeled and chopped up all my veggies.

I then added the tomatoes, broth, seasoning and veggies to the meat in the roaster, gave it a little stir and let it sit and simmer away for a couple of hours.

Once the veggies had cooked down and softened up I decided to make this a beef vegetable dumpling soup by adding in some of my grandma's famous 13 minute dumplings.  I turned the heat up on the roaster so I had a boil going and I mixed up my dumplings

13 Minute Dumplings
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Mix together the dry ingredients.  In a one cup liquid measuring cup whisk one egg and add enough milk to equal one cup.  Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.  Drop into the boiling liquid and cover.  Do not open the lid for 13 minutes or dumplings will end up gummy.

Here's what the final soup looked like.