Ingredient

Stock

Stock is water that has been used to extract gelatine, savoury compounds and aroma from bones and vegetables. Good stock is the single largest difference between competent home cooking and something noticeably better, and it costs almost nothing but time.

What you are extracting

Three things. Gelatine, from the collagen in bones, skin and connective tissue, which is what gives stock body and makes it set to a jelly when cold. Savoury compounds from the meat and from browned surfaces. And aroma from the vegetables and herbs.

Body is the property people notice and the hardest to fake. A stock made from joints, feet, wings and knuckles will set solid in the fridge; one made from lean meat and lean bones will not, however long it cooks. If your stock is thin, the answer is more collagen-rich bones rather than more time.

A stock that sets to a wobbling jelly when cold is the mark of a good one, and it is why a spoonful of it transforms a sauce.

The kinds

White stock

Bones and vegetables put in raw. Clean, delicate, pale. Right for light sauces, risotto and poaching.

Brown stock

Bones and vegetables roasted first until deeply coloured. Darker, sweeter, far more savoury. Right for gravy, braises and red-wine sauces.

Vegetable stock

No collagen, so no body — it is a flavoured liquid rather than a stock in the classical sense. Cooks in under an hour and suffers from being cooked longer.

Fish stock

Bones from white fish only. Cooks in twenty minutes and goes bitter if pushed further.

Remouillage

A second, weaker extraction from bones already used. Worth doing, and good for cooking grains or pulses in.

Making chicken stock

1. Use carcasses, wings, necks and feet if you can get them. Feet are almost pure collagen and transform the result.
2. For brown stock, roast the bones at a high heat until properly dark. Pale bones give pale stock.
3. Cover with cold water by a few centimetres. Cold, so the proteins that cause cloudiness rise slowly and can be skimmed.
4. Bring it up slowly and skim the grey scum off the surface as it forms, in the first twenty minutes. This is what buys you a clear stock.
5. Add the vegetables — onion, carrot, celery, leek tops — and aromatics only after skimming.
6. Hold it at a bare simmer. It should barely move. A boiling stock emulsifies its own fat and goes cloudy and greasy, and this is the mistake that ruins most home stock.
7. Strain through a fine sieve without pressing the solids, cool quickly, and lift the set fat off the top once cold.

How long

Fish

20 minutes. Longer gives bitterness.

Vegetable

45 minutes to an hour.

Chicken

Three to four hours.

Beef or veal

Six to eight hours, or longer.

Pressure cooker

Roughly a third of the time, and it extracts gelatine very effectively. The trade-off is a less clear result.

What goes wrong

• Cloudy — it boiled, or the scum was not skimmed, or the solids were pressed when straining.
• Greasy — it boiled, emulsifying the fat into the liquid. Chill and lift the fat off.
• Thin and watery — not enough collagen. Add wings, feet or knuckles next time.
• Bitter — vegetables cooked too long, too much celery, or brassicas and root vegetable skins in the pot.
• Bland — salt it at the point of use, not in the pot. Stock is usually reduced later, and salted stock becomes inedible when concentrated.
• Sour after storage — cooled too slowly. Get it cold fast, in a shallow container.

Common questions