On the Merits of Stock

...SOUP stock! You thought this was going to be an investing post didn't you? Au contraire!

I just got done making one of the best soups I've ever made, and I wanted to share with readers the one simple secret to making the perfect soup.

This was just a humble split pea soup with very basic ingredients: an onion, half a pound of grocery store-quality kielbasa, and a few carrots. I spiced it with some hot pepper flakes, a lot of ground thyme, black pepper and garlic powder. Nothing fancy. And, like most of the simple soups and stews we make here at Casual Kitchen, it was laughably cheap, costing something like 47c a serving.

But what made this soup taste so amazing was this: I used a simple homemade soup stock as the base.

Level up your cooking
This isn't the first time I've written about the merits of using stock rather than water or bouillon as a soup base. I want to re-emphasize this with readers, because homemade stock is easy to make and it adds something amazing, something extra, to soups and stews. It's an easy way to level up the quality of your cooking at practically zero extra cost.

Also, let me be clear: do not buy store-bought stock. It is not worth it. Almost all store-bought stocks contain sugar (sometimes in more than one form), excess salt, artificial flavors and colors and, often, MSG. Blech. Don't pay your hard-earned money for this crap when you can make far better and healthier stock at home for free.

How to make a basic stock at near-zero cost
We've shared various stock recipes here at CK in the past, but I'll share briefly here what I did to produce about 10 cups or so of pork stock, which will be the foundation of perhaps three or four batches of delicious soups in our home in the coming weeks.

First, I decided to cook up a pernil, thanks to stumbling on a doorbuster sale on pork shoulders at my local grocery store. We seasoned and roasted it according to Rosie's Pernil recipe. Then, we saved the bones, the skin and any and all leftover vegetable trimmings we happened to have on hand (often we will save up random vegetable peelings, onion ends, etc., in our freezer for this very purpose).

Then, all you have to do is put everything into a big soup pot, fill with cold water, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer gently for several hours on a lazy afternoon. Let it cool a bit, and then pour it through a colander (fat and all!) into pre-measured plastic freezer containers in sizes of your choosing. A batch of stock usually yields ten to twelve cups, which we freeze in 2- and 3-cup containers.

If you don't like pork, feel free to use bones and trimmings from roasted chicken, turkey, beef or other meats, even seafood. Or, for CK's many vegan and vegetarian readers, you can make an easy basic vegetable stock.

Here's where some readers push back. "I'm busy! I don't have afternoons to kill sitting in the kitchen watching a pot of stock simmering."

Oh, zip it, ye piteous excuse makers! It's not like you have to stare unblinkingly at the pot all day long. You can use this time to cook something else for your family, read a good book, do your taxes, work on a personal writing project, or handle some of your own personal investing. A pot of simmering stock takes just a minute or two of attention every couple of hours or so, just to check that it's simmering sufficiently.

The cost is near zero, but the rewards are priceless. You'll be astounded by the added nuance and flavor enhancement your stock gives to any soup or stew.

"Sausage stock"
A quick coda: A few months ago, Laura and her mother made a mini-pilgrimage to Buffalo, NY, Laura's birthplace and where much of her family is from. While there, they stopped in at the family’s favorite meat shop to pick up what I consider to be the best pork sausage on the face of our green Earth.

Laura brought a couple of pounds home with her, and this past weekend she cooked it up according to the family recipe: boil for an hour and a half in plenty of water.

She didn't realize it at the time, but she'd inadvertently made a big batch of sausage stock!

And she made it at zero cost and at zero extra work. Admittedly, the zero extra work part was because I did all the rest (heh). But hey, we were going to cook the sausage anyway. So instead of pointlessly dumping the "sausage water" right down the drain, I created a use for it by pouring it into a few pre-measured plastic containers to freeze for later use.

And oh what a use it was. This humble little pot of split pea soup, made with modest--even forgettable--ingredients, became something unforgettable, with a flavor literally out of this world. All thanks to a few cups of pork stock and a few cups of sausage stock, substituted for water as the soup's base. It's amazing how something so simple and so easy as a basic soup stock can pay such profound cooking dividends.

Take your cooking up a level or two: use homemade stock. I'm serious, it's magical.


Read Next: The Broken Food Pyramid

And: How To Be a Biased Consumer

6 comments:

Jim Cunningham said...

I've been trying (off and on) for YEARS to get some good, scientific data on chicken/veggie stock making and when different things REALLY hit a point of no return and begin to break down.
All I ever get is "my momma told me" or "my teacher told me", but I can't seem to find the "scientist chef" that can unequivocally breakdown the actual *scientific* do's and don'ts:
It seems that collagen rich parts of chicken like feet and necks are best simmered for 30-36 hours - and I MEAN simmered - I cook mine so there are literally no bubbles, only the slight shimmering of the liquid and steam noticeable only when stirring; the rest of the "marrow" bones best broken and simmered for up to 24 hours (they do turn to mush well before the feet are done, but can they remain in, or do you need to remove and only continue with the feet or rick destroying the first-done bones with the extended cooking.
I repeatedly see that veggies only should be cooked for 2 hours, but each article also says that at that point, the carrots will be mush - not MINE, and again, I simmer really low, but even 12 hours later, there is still life in the veggies.
I save all carrot ends, garlic butts, onion skins - literally every unused piece of vegetable matter not used in whatever I'm making for any meal - but I've read that freezing these things causes them to breakdown and are of no use after "x" amount of time.
I also make huge amounts of both stock and soup and similarly have read that both of them also breakdown in the freezer - if so, WHEN?
ANYWAY, if someone has ONLY SCIENTIFIC data on these and other factors involved in stock/soup making, I'd love to see it - I'm sure your momma and your teacher were/are really knowledgeable, but those opinions are NOT what I'm after!!
Thanks in advance.

Jim Cunningham said...

I've been trying (off and on) for YEARS to get some good, scientific data on chicken/veggie stock making and when different things REALLY hit a point of no return and begin to break down.

All I ever get is "my momma told me" or "my teacher told me", but I can't seem to find the "scientist chef" that can unequivocally break down (pardon the pun!) the actual *scientific* do's and don'ts:

It seems that collagen rich parts of chicken like feet and necks are best simmered for 30-36 hours - and I MEAN simmered - I cook mine so there are literally no bubbles, only the slight shimmering of the liquid and steam noticeable only when stirring; the rest of the "marrow" bones best broken and simmered for up to 24 hours.

They do turn to mush well before the feet are done, but can they remain in, or do you need to remove and only continue with the feet separately, or risk destroying the first-done bone portion of the stock with the extended cooking.

Same with adding the veggies - should they be cooked separately and then mixed in at the end?

And skin - I keep reading that the skin has no appreciable value and especially compared to the fat content, but I suspect both are wrong - this type of fat is probably really good for you, it adds great flavor and ANY additional collagen is appreciated, so is it really a win/win keeping the skin in?

I think they're wrong on "bad cholesterol, too, IMHO, as your body simply would not have something that is "bad" for you as part of its normal functioning - the "bad" effects attributed to cholesterol actually has to do with the viscosity of the blood vessel walls, not the cholesterol passing through.

I repeatedly see that veggies only should be cooked for 2 hours, but each article also says that at that point, the carrots will be mush - not MINE, and again, and the carrots are still fairly stiff 8+ hours later.

I save and freeze (in addition to all chicken carcasses) all carrot ends, garlic butts, onion skins - literally every unused piece of vegetable matter not used in whatever I'm making for any meal - but I've read that freezing these things causes them to breakdown and are of no use after "x" amount of time.

I also make huge amounts of both stock and soup and similarly have read that both of them also breakdown in the freezer - if so, WHEN and to what degree? Only a little may still make it worthwhile to get many weeks worth done at the same time.

What about bringing the stock or soup (especially the stock) to a boil and for how long before it causes damage? It seems to me that a "pre-boil" draws something out not otherwise attained with just low temp cooking, but surely has a "point of no return"; at least with the stock. And if so, are the diminishing return points for flavor and nutritional value the same or not?

My soup, even though made in big batches, if eating alone I tend to, after the initial cooking, heat only enough for my meal so I don't destroy it with repeated heating, so that is not a consideration in how much I can cook it up front - my veggies are fresh and crisp looking and tasting, accordingly.

ANYWAY, if someone has ONLY SCIENTIFIC DATA on these and other factors involved in stock/soup making, I'd love to see it - I'm sure your momma and your teacher were/are really knowledgeable, but those opinions are NOT what I'm after!!

There are probably other relevant questions not occurring to me now, as it's easily been a year since I've thought about it.

Thanks in advance.

Daniel said...

Jim, what you're asking for is intriguing, but well beyond the scope of this blog.

I'd say one of the nice things about using homemade stock is it just works. And you simply don't have to seek--or even worry about--precise answers to the kinds of questions you're asking. Good luck to you!

DK

chacha1 said...

Jim seems to misunderstand what topics get scientific study. LOL

I have been making stock for years with the carcass of smoked turkeys from Greenberg's, which we get for the holidays. All I add to the covering water is a couple of bay leaves. I typically simmer for 8-10 hours, cool, strain, refrigerate or freeze. Also, I usually pick out another half-cup to cup of meat, which is too good not to go after.

When I want to make stock and it's not turkey season, chicken carcasses will do just fine.

Jim Cunningham said...

Daniel, I don't seek because I have to, I do so because I want to, and I don't worry about it - I am intrigued by it. I agree that it's cool you can make such great stuff without really trying, but love turning things inside out - when I was a kid I figured out I could reverse the electromagnet (didn't even know what it was) on our family TV/record player combo and listen to the White Album backwards! :)

I'm glad you guys are happy with the simple fact that it works, but I get bored easily, have great appreciation for detail, and particularly enjoy learning everything I can about something, so if you have any clue where to suggest I look for this info, I'd greatly appreciate it!

Daniel said...

Jim, more power to you. If I see anything that I think might be helpful to you, I'll be sure to share it here!

DK