Beef stock

Daniel Pfyl, hospitality management lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, shares some professional techniques to make your cooking easier: Today, making a beef stock for soup.

Stocks are the basis of many recipes, including sauces, stews and braised dishes.

Beef bones - the best for stock - are weight-bearing bones which contain marrow, such as shin or leg. Wash the bones and trim off any fat.

Use vegetables such as onion, carrot, leek - you can use peelings and trimmings such as the top leaves of the leek, and older, limp vegetables.

Some people like to roast the bones and even the vegetables as well to intensify the flavours before making stock, but Chef Pfyl prefers not to when he is making stock for soup, although he may do so if he is making stock for a sauce or jus. He says the flavours can be too harsh for a classic soup.

STEP 1:

To colour the beef stock, instead of roasting bones he blackens the surface of an onion in a dry frying pan.

Wash an onion (there's no need to peel it) and cut it in half so there is a large cut surface.

Put it in a dry pan over medium heat until the cut surface is blackened.

STEP 2:

Use a big enough pot so the bones take up the bottom third. Cover with cold water to about 3-4cm above the bones.

Chef Pfyl says anything you want to get the flavour out of, start in cold water. If you want to keep the flavour in, such as in poaching a chicken, start with hot water, he says.

Put the pot with the bones and water on the heat.

STEP 3:

Make a bouquet garni by tying a bay leaf, one clove, a sprig of thyme, some peppercorns and parsley stalks in a piece of cheesecloth.

STEP 4:

Cut the vegetables - the top part of a leek, a couple of sticks of celery, a large carrot - in half lengthways and tie together with cotton string.

Having the vegetables together makes it easier to skim the stock.

STEP 5:

When the stock comes to the boil, add a ladle of cold water to encourage the scum to come to the top, and turn the heat down to keep it at a gentle simmer.

It should cook at a lazy little bubble, not a rolling boil.

STEP 6:

Skim off the scum. Chef Pfyl likes to dip the skimming ladle into a bowl of water which removes the scum and cleans the ladle. The scum is protein and will make the stock cloudy if left.

STEP 7:

Try to get as much scum off, then add the vegetables, including the onion with the blackened surface, and the bouquet garni. Continue to skim from time to time while the stock simmers.

Beef stock is best simmered for four to eight hours. Do not cover, but add more water if it evaporates.

STEP 8:

Strain the stock through a cheesecloth-lined sieve or a fine sieve. Cool, preferably overnight. Any fat will harden on the top and can be removed easily.

Do not add salt to stock. If you decide to reduce it, it will be too salty.Adjust seasoning in finished dish.

Fresh stock can be stored covered in the fridge for one to three days, or frozen. You can reduce the volume by letting it come to a gentle, lazy boil and cook until reduced.

Stock concentrated like this takes less space to store. Freeze it in ice cube trays then store in a plastic bag.

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