Not So Bare Bones

The aroma of ham stock pervades the house. A month to the day since I bought the Serrano ham from Aldi its remnants have this morning been hacked from the bone and frozen, to enrich stews and soups in months to come. In good Ba Ba Blacksheep style we got three bags full, plus the knuckle wrapped up separately.

The ham was advertised as 6.5kg, though I didn't weigh it, and cost £40. Those remains must total a good 750g, and even the main bone isn't going to waste, simmering with stock vegetables and herbs various in a pot with the capacity of a cricket club tea urn. When the stock is right - as soon as I finish this - I'll pour it through a sieve into a cold metal bowl to cool before skimming, which given there is a load of fat and skin in the makings may well account for 10 per cent of the volume. Some will go in the fridge for imminent use, some freeze for future value.

As I do whenever I see those annoying TV adverts for stupid piddly stock pots I'm tempted now to say balls to Marco Pierre White. That idea that a magic bought ingredient will make your cooking cheffily brilliant is just so wrong. Good ingredients can help, but a miniscule plastic pot of jellied goo probably doesn't qualify, and is not going to turn a thin ragout into a rich and fragrant feast. A properly - lovingly - made stock just may. Thus tomorrow's turkey risotto made with some of the ham stock has a decent chance of being really flavoursome, the meat and bones backed up by carrots, onions, garlic, bay, pepper, cassia bark, celery and thyme. 

On Friday I asked the Booth's butcher for some beef bones for another stock, and was surprised that he fished out two short bones from what may have been flat-rib, very meaty indeed. No charge - I heard someone say the other day that butchers pay to have the bones taken away, so welcome such requests. That price definitely fits the austerity remit. Again simmered (and carefully skimmed of gunk), but this time with lots of star anise and chillis along with the stock vegetables, they made the basis of a fine noodle soup (per SC damp noodles, though I notice that he had no problem downing plenty). Naturally both of these exercises took a lot longer than peeling the lid off a Knorr potlet, but it's worth it. One more chorus of balls to Mr W.

One Flame Cooking Super Rapido

Last night a combination of poorly child and electrical work meant I couldn't get to the kitchen till late, or late for us. Something rapid was thus required, and thanks to the rich stock from slow cooking a flat-rib of beef this was no prob. Stock skimmed of fat was heated through in a pan to which I added a drained tin of bamboo shoots, the few remaining bits of beef cut small, and two sheets of noodles (from a pack bought ages ago in local Chinese supermarket - bargain). Flavoured with soy sauce and five-spice powder and a brutally crushed garlic clove to give it a bit of depth it was ready in five minutes.

As the stock was rich and delicious so was the soup, which in a way was posh pot-noodle. If I'd had any in the freezer I'd have added sweetcorn for more fibre, but hadn't so didn't. Don't care, it was still really good.

The Joy of Stocks

Making stock is one of life's simplest culinary pleasures. It fills the house with a comforting smell (unless it's lamb, which I tend not to bother with), and as a near freebie warms the heart of the austerity cook.

Earlier in the week with son suffering with severe yoot flu I made a chicken broth for our evening meal having prepared the stock in the afternoon using the well-picked carcase of a roast bird. Anyone who believes there is no difference between real stock and a cube has yet to make the real stuff. Same son, aka Sternest Critic, can always tell if I make risotto with the cheaty option.

Yesterday I got around to making some beef stock with the bones and bits from Sunday's roast. It was getting near the time when I would no longer trust it, and Friday being shopping day we needed to clear some room in the fridge. Chicken stock I make in about an hour, as simmered too long it can go a bit gluey; beef can bubble modestly for three or four hours.

The bones were joined by four bay-leaves, a large onion quartered, two sticks of celery and the leaves of several more, a carrot in thick diagonal slices (to give plenty of surface area), with several cloves of garlic, about 12 peppercorns, and two flowers of star anise. Not sure if that is what they should be called but they look like it. Three hours - and a half-teaspoonful of salt - later we have the liquid makings of a Chinese noodle soup, kept in the fridge overnight so the beefy fat can be skimmed off (and probably used in cooking something else, or maybe just on a sliver of toast).

Years ago Chris Johnson, who in Ramsbottom since the 1980s has run the best restaurant in the North West under various different names - the original was The Village Restaurant - told us about a trip to I think a Paul Bocuse eaterie. He had been terribly disappointed, and was scathing about a soup tried there, with as he put it 'no depth' to the stock. He seemed saddened that such a hero of the food world should have erred in so basic a fashion. That depth is in fact really easy to achieve even in the home kitchen, so I can understand Chris's dismay, leaving aside what had been paid for the bowlful.