Bone Stock. Foundation of Good Cooking

It is on a good stock … that excellence in cookery depends.

First Edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management.

 
Mrs English wrote to her friend Isabella Beeton, an inexperienced cook who was planning a cookery book for her husband’s publishing house, “the Stockpot is the great secret of the kitchen. Without it nothing can be done, with it everything can be done”.  Mrs Beeton duly reflected this advice in her great work.

Bone stock, chilled. Doesn’t look all that promising, does it?

Good cooking without proper bone stock is inconceivable. Yes, many years ago, I did try being vegetarian for a year, and even played around the edges of veganism for a while towards the end, but that pushed me over the edge and I started eating meat again. I try to eat proper meat, from animals that have had a good life, and I don’t eat that much of it as I often use it to flavour dishes rather than as the main ingredient.

 
Many traditional cuisines around the world use bone stock, or cook meat dishes on the bone, to add nutrition and flavour. Here in the UK we have become squeamish about bones. I spent a few brief months selling my cooking at a Country Market, which is what the traditional WI markets (Women’s Institute) markets morphed into. Yes, I really did hear Jerusalem being sung at a WI meeting where I was giving a talk about The Oak Tree Farm once accompanied by the most dreadful cassette recording you can imagine, leaving me attempting to control a fit of the giggles without much success.

 
But the Country Markets have “spun off” from the WI, as a modern manager might put it. And my time with the Country Market is another story all to itself, which cumulated in what Mr Ermine described rather unflatteringly in my opinion, in a “catfight”. Suffice to say, it wasn’t a great experience for me. But before this unfortunate incident, my “coq au vin” was rather popular with the customers, though I was scolded by the Country Market powers that be for including chicken on the bone.

Is this really the best the British Cuisine can manage?

I had just returned from five years living in France where diners would have been suspicious if their coq au vin hadn’t been on the bone. Meat comes in vacuum packs here in the UK, ideally without bones or texture. If it has been through a mechanical extraction machine and turned into dinosaur shapes covered in crap then all the better. But enough bitching about British food culture. I was telling you how to make bone stock.

 
The traditional stockpot is a large, tall saucepan that allows you to make a good quantity of stock. To make quality stock requires long simmering, so it is well worth investing in a good quality stockpot to allow you to make sufficient volume of bone stock to justify the work involved. It smells bad while you are making it. It seems that it is the cooking bones that smell, not the liquid stock, but it is off-putting, and Mr Ermine kicks up quite a fuss if the kitchen door isn’t closed.

 
To make bone stock you need nothing more than bones and a little wine or cider vinegar. I avoid adding herbs and spices, or vegetables for that matter. I prefer to keep the flavour as general as possible so I can use it in all sorts of dishes afterwards. And it is wasteful to cook vegetables for hours in the stock as they end up mushy and devoid of all nutrients at the end, and need to be thrown out.

 
I have used bones from roast dinners, or uncooked bones. Uncooked are better, but all are useful. I store bones up in the freezer until I have enough to justify making stock. Generally I use pork or chicken bones. You can use others, even fish bones, but I have had bad experience with venison bones & beef marrowbones. The stock tasted like glue. So I stick to what I know.

Here are some ideas on how to acquire bones for stock:

• Ask your butcher for bones that he is planning to throw away. He may charge you, he may not.
• Ask for a pig’s trotter or two to mix in with other bones. I pay about 50p a go, and it is well worth it.
• Keep the carcass of your roast chicken.
• Don’t buy chicken pieces, buy an entire bird. It is cheaper and you get to keep all the bones. Skinless chicken breasts are a terrible waste, and very expensive.
• If you do buy chicken pieces, keep the bones.

There is a ritual around washing up time in the Ermine household if we have been eating roast chicken legs (from a jointed entire bird, of course). Mr Ermine threatens to throw the bones away, I threaten goodness knows what if he does, and run into the kitchen after him to rescue the bones that are being suspended over the bin. The bones are then saved in a plastic bag and put in the freezer. It is one of those routines that reassures you that all is well with the world.

How To Make Bone Stock:

• Use kitchen scissors, or a cleaver, to break the bones into smaller pieces; this increases the surface area of bone exposed to the stock, and thus increases the quality and nutrient value of your stock. I admit that I am sometimes too idle to do this, but it does improve the end result.
•  Place the bones in your stockpot, and cover with cold water. If you have chicken gizzards then add these to your stockpot. Add a very small amount of white wine vinegar or cider vinegar if you have it. This helps to extract the nutrients from the bones.
•  Bring your stock to the boil very slowly. It is this slow heating which helps to extract all the goodness and flavour.
• Bring the stock to the boil, and simmer slowly for at least six hours, and up to 24 hours. If you cannot do this in one session then it is possible to remove the stockpot from the heat and leave it in a very cool place for a few hours before bringing it back to the boil and simmering again for at least an hour.
• Strain the stock from the bones, discard the bones and allow to cool. Remove the fat from the surface. The stock may cool to a firm jelly, which indicates high gelatine content.

Storing Stock

• Stock with keep in the fridge for a few days.
• You can deep freeze small portions of stock; this is convenient for use in sauces and soups.
• If you are short of space in the freezer then reduce the stock by boiling it in a wide topped pan with the windows and doors open until you’ve reduce the volume enough. I store mine in ice cube trays.

Using bone stock

Use bone stock as the basis of all soups, including vegetable soups. Use as the cooking liquid in pretty much any savoury dish. I use it in curries, casseroles, to make gravy. If I am lazy and want a nice soup almost instantly I boil some stock, add proper sea salt and a little chilli and a tablespoonful of nice crème fraiche once it has come off the heat. I consider this to be a health food, especially if I have a cold or the ‘flu.