Taking Stock

Soooooo...I decided not to got to work today. After all, it was Sunday. I had worked Saturday. I feel like I have worked Saturday and Sunday for about a month. The thing is... I do not really love working 7 days a week but this time of year, my wife works a lot. A whole lot and with the kids getting older and older they do not really need me or at least it does not feel like they do. (In all actuality there is a reasonably good chance that we are neglecting our 18 year old but that is neither here nor there). I mean it is but... what are you going to do about it? I mean sure, calling Missouri Division of Children’s Services might be a good idea but I digress.

I like to cook. I am not a good cook. My ability to follow recipe’s is... suspect t best. But I like to cook. I find it relaxing and when something comes out good and you feed it to people and you like it... well that is a little sweet, perhaps a lot sweet. I have reading Anthony Bourdain’s “Les Halles” cookbook and like every other thing that he discusses about quality food revolves around making your own stock. I thought you made stock from bullion cubes. It would appear that I... to quote my great contracts professor, the late Vincent Immel... “erred”.

So, I went to the counter at the grocery store and requested some beef or veal bones... and they looked at me like I was an idiot. They were of course correct. I had forgotten that after all of these years that most grocery stores get “boxed beef” which they trip down. there are no carcasses and very few bones. So, I politely left and headed to Bauman’s Meat Market where I buy some of their specialty stuff and knuckle bones for my dogs and they hooked me up. The I bought a couple onions and some celery and a few mushrooms and some carrots.

You spread the bones on a greased sheet and preheat the oven to 375 and then you rinse the bones then you spread some tomato paste on them and sprinke a little flour on them and put them in the oven, turning occasionally and you baked them for 45 minutes. Do not let them get black. While they are cooking, chop up your celery and onions and carrots and mushrooms into a rough chop and in the bottom of a big thick bottomed pot brown them all for a while in just a little Olive Oil till caramelized. When the bones are thoroughly browned dump them into the pot and fill to the top with cold water. Heat it up almost to a boil (but not a boil) and then reduce to a simmer. Clean the scum off the top (there will be a lot early and then not much) and simmer those suckers for 8-10 hours.

Now it is 8-10 hours later. I had enough time in between to make, and eat a 4lb pulled pork roast. The hardest part of the stock making is when you have let it simmer for that long and then you have to put it through a strainer and a cheese cloth, and then a strainer and a cheese cloth, again and again. Then you let it cool. Now I am refrigerating it and tomorrow I will skim the scum off the top of it and then store it in mason jars in the freezer for whenever I need it. the next question... what will I need it for? Only time will tell.