Traditionally stocks are made by boiling bones, mirepoix (usually onions, carrots and celery), and a bouquet garni in water. There are several basic kinds of stocks: fonds brun (brown stocks), fonds blanc (white stocks), fumets (fish stocks), and bouillons de légumes (vegetable stocks). Today we made one of each and (bonus!) a marmite which is still technically a white stock.
Before you start chucking vegetables into a pot, there are some things you should know about stockmaking:
- Do not salt stock. But wait, won't the resulting liquid taste bad without it? Um, yes. However, you do not salt a stock because A. you may reduce it to make a sauce. As we've all learned in science class during that lecture on desalination, liquid reduces, salt does not. A salted stock will result in a grossly salty reduction. B. you don't know how the final dish that uses the stock will be flavored. Remember, stock is not broth. If you use it to make a broth, then, yes, salt it at that point; otherwise, no.
- Always start with cold liquid before brining to a boil. Why? It will extract more from the bones.
- Don't let your stock boil--you don't want the fatty junk at the top to get re-incorporated.
- A sign of a quality stock is that it's very clear, not cloudy. So skim that puppy often. The fancy French word for this is dégraisser or "degrease".
- After cooking, you should strain your stock (cause no one wants sand or bones or burnt vegetable bits), and cool it quickly so it won't spoil. Never ever combine stocks of different temperature or else it will spoil. And don't worry if there is a little fat at the top of the bowl--this can actually act as a preservative. Fat keeps out the air. Remember how back in the day people would store things in a tub of lard? No? Well they did, cause it keeps things from spoiling. Also, did you know that if you bring a stock that has been sitting around in the fridge to a boil again and let it cool, you've essentially re-booted it's shelf life? How long you can continue doing this, I don't know...but, I would think in a restaurant it gets used before you have time to be too concerned.
Brown Stocks/Fonds Brun:
A stock is classified as brown, if the bones have been roasted. The vegetables used are usually roasted too. The browning is caused by Maillard Reactions-basically some jazz with sugar and proteins in the presence of high heat. Huzzah! Brown stocks also differ from white stocks, because often they'll have tomatoes.
We made Brown Veal Stock. We roasted our veal "knuckles"till they were nice and brown, then deglazed (déglacer) the roasting pan. The vegetables got roasted too, and once colored, were spread with tomato paste and left to roast a bit more. That pan got deglazed as well. The browned bones went in a pot with their deglazed juices and some cold water and were brought to a boil. Then we lowered to a simmer and skimmed a bit. (This is easier to do without your Mirepoix in the way). Then we put in the veggies, garlic, and bouquet garni and left it to simmer for 8-12 hours. In fact, it's simmering I type this.
White Stocks/ Fonds Blanc:
White stocks are any stock that isn't brown...okay, maybe there's a bit more to it than that. Rather than being browned, typically the bones in a white stock are blanched-placed in cold water, brought to a boil and drained. Caveat: chicken bones aren't blanched due to shorter cooking time of the stock, also fish bones aren't blanched, rather they are sweated.
We made Chicken Stock in class today. It was a similar process to the brown stocks except we didn't brown the bones. We just placed the chicken bones in cold water, boiled them, skimmed the fat with a slotted spoon and/or ladle*, added our mirepoix†and bouquet garni, and left it to simmer.
*If skimming with a ladle, the trick is to swirl the back of the ladle in a circle on the surface of the stock, as if you were spreading something in a circular motion. By swirling your ladle in the middle, the greasy frothy bits are pushed to the sides of the pot where you can then go around with your ladle and skim off. P.S. you should hold your ladle like a pencil in the middle of the handle.
†The size of your mirepoix will depend on how long the stock simmers. For a chicken stock that only simmers 2-3 hours, our mirepoix was about 1". For the veal we left things pretty big i.e. 3-4". Also mirepoix was left unpeeled for the veal.
Fish Stocks/Fumets:
Fish stock is technically a form of white stock. Why? The bones aren't browned. Personally, I think fish stock sounds disgusting; but, other than the fact that we had a tail of a sea bass chillin' in our pot, it wasn't so bad.
It was somewhat entertaining watching Chef Bruno hack away with a cleaver at the fish remains to cut them into manageable sections. Little spittles of guts were splattering everywhere and I feared a little for his fingers. It was rather reminiscent of this. In fact, I may have been singing Les Poissons under my breath to the amusement of my classmates.
Fish stock was slightly different than the others in preparation, since we sweated the mirepoix first. Sweating is basically sautéing, except you don't let any color develop. The mirepoix for fish stock doesn't have carrots, only leeks and onions since you don't want the color. After we sweated the veggies, in went the fish. Lucky us, we got a fish tail and some bits of the spine that had pockets of coagulated blood that I got to clean out. Yay. I'm not exactly sure what it means to sweat a fish, but we just left in in the pot for a bit till it looked less raw. Then, in went the cold water and the bouquet garni. This was left to simmer for just 20 minutes or so. Fish bones don't have much gelatin, so it doesn't take too long to extract what's there. The short simmer time also means your vegetables are émincer or thinly chopped.
Vegetable Stocks/Bouillons de Légumes:
Vegetable stocks are also white stocks. Vegetables = no bones. Vegetable stock is prepared pretty much the same way as the fish stock, just minus the fish in exchange for tomatoes. We also added in some mushrooms and parsley leaves, instead of just the stems (which are typically included in the bouquet garni).
If you don't feel like lying to your vegan patrons, it might also be nice to use oil, rather than butter when sweating your vegetables in a vegetable stock...but I won't tell.
Marmite:
Le Marmite (luh mahr-meet) is the French word for stockpot but it is also what you call a beef stock made with blackened onion halves or oignon brulé. It is often the base for consommé. Marmite is considered a white stock (despite it's darker amber color) because, again, you don't brown the bones. To make a marmite you must first blacken (read: burn the cut edge) an onion in a cast iron pan. You will add the oignon brulé in with the other mirepoix vegetables, but you should be careful not to add too much or your stock will be bitter. Two pieces of onion per 2 gallons is enough.
To make a marmite, you follow the steps for any white stock. Boil then drain the bones, add cold water and boil again. Turn to a simmer and be sure to skim it before adding the vegetables and aromatics. Marmites will simmer for 8-12 hours. So in the morning we will see how we did.
I am sous chef tomorrow, so it will likely be my job to strain and cool the stocks we left simmering overnight. We can use any method we'd like to attempt to lower the temperature to 70º. We poured it into a restaurant container and then stuck a bucket of ice water in the middle. Chef had us dip in ladles under the ice buckets and swirl the water to speed things up. Hence we had to listen to a lot of "clinking" the last hour of class.
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