Making (or taking) stock...

Making a basic soup stock is a process you will be thrilled you know for years to come.  I have a very simple process that never fails to get "oooh's and aaaah's" from friends and family.  Some people use a "bouquet garni", some people "sweat" their veggies.  For me, it is all about the meat and the length of time you take to boil the stock.  The longer you simmer the stock, the more calcium and marrow nutrients you pull from the bone, cartilage, and vegetables. 

The basic components of a good stock are meat or bone, vegetables, water and herbs.  I will use as an example the lamb soup I made yesterday. 

Given the fact that you are extracting nutrients from the meat and vegetables, it is best to use organic, grass-fed or free range ingredients for your stock.  As you boil down the ingredients, you are also concentrating them (including the toxins and chemicals that would have been used in the ingredients).

Take a large pot.  Honestly, you can not use too large of a pot to make your stock.  Fill about 3/4 full of cold water.  Put in your meat of choice, frozen or thawed.  In this case, I used lamb neck bones for the stock.  Use cheap cuts,bones, carcasses, older meat, etc... 

I then used 1/2 red onion (cut into 4 pieces), 2 stalks of organic celery, 2 organic carrots, about 1/4 cup of rosemary, lots of dried parsley (1/2 cup or so), kosher or Himalayan salt, two cloves of home-grown garlic (peeled), about 1/2 Tbsp of celery salt, pepper, and a bay leaf.  Each celery stalk and carrot was cut in half and dropped in the pot.  Drop all of these lovely ingredients into the pot and bring to a boil.  Once it reaches a full, rolling boil, turn back the heat.  Let this beautiful concoction simmer and simmer and simmer.  All day.  Over night.  Whatever works for you.  If it looks like it is losing too much liquid, put a lid on it.  Simmer and simmer away.  6 hours is great.  8 hours is better.  10 hours would be fabulous.  4 hours is OK in a pinch.  Get the idea?  Put it on the stove first thing in the morning and let it simmer.  Put it in the crock pot before you leave for work on low and you will come home to a house that smells incredible.


One big tip is not to use aluminum pots or pans.  Use stainless steel or use cast iron (which will infuse more iron into your stock).  Actually, throw away any aluminum pans you have.  Right now.  Go to your nearest shop and pick out new pans.  Or your nearest thrift store.  Just do NOT use aluminum. Look up aluminum toxicity if you don't believe me.  This link is just one of many:  http://www.vitawise.com/Nutritional_Healing/aluminum%20toxicity.htm.  OK, made my point (getting off soap box now...).

OK, so now you have simmered and boiled and boiled and simmered.  Doesn't your home smell incredible?  Take your pot of stock and pull out all the meat and bones  and then strain it through a fine-mesh strainer.  Keep the meat so you can incorporate it back into your soup.  Put the strained stock back into your pot (I wash my pot first as I like my stock to not have chunky bits in it).  Another great idea is to pour this gorgeous stock into ice cube trays.  You can then take out cube by cube for future recipes that require stock.  Ask me later about using the stock to make wild rice....

So, if you decide to use the stock right away to make soup (like I did yesterday), pour the stock back into the pot after straining.  Pull any meat off the bone and put that back into the stock.  Use only the lovely, juicy bits of meat and no connective tissue, etc...  Then peel and cut up a couple of carrots, a couple of stalks of celery, add more dried or fresh parsley (you can NEVER add too much parsley, it is chock-full of vitamin A, B vitamins, folic acid and other great vitamins...).  Dice the other half of the red onion and throw that in.

Taste the broth.  What does it need?  More salt?  More pepper?  To the lamb soup, I added a couple dashes of worcestershire sauce.  Let the soup simmer until the veggies are tender.  To the lamb soup, I also added a large handful of rinsed (local) wild rice.  Once everything is tender, serve with a nice loaf of artisan or home-made bread and possibly a salad.

This process for making broth can be used with a chicken or turkey carcass, with a beef soup bone, with a leftover ham bone, pork hock, etc....  Each meat is going to have different herbs that compliment it.  When I use a chicken carcass, chicken backs or a turkey carcass, I use a poultry seasoning blend in the stock preparation.  You can also use long grain white rice, egg noodles, etc... for the starch in your soup.  I often add a few shakes of cayenne pepper to most stock, not to make it spicy, but to "kick up" the flavor a bit.  Cayenne intensifies the other flavors when used in small amounts.

If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please do not hesitate to ask :)