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Basic Cooking Tips and Guides for Making Homemade Stocks

Homemade Stocks As A Foundation

Homemade frozen stock cubes are very convenient to toss into soups, stews, sauces, stir-fries, rice (or risotto), noodle, sauces, casseroles and pies and also served as a foundation to many homemade dishes. It is so simple, rewarding and economical. After all, homemade beef stock are made from scratch. Below cooking tips and guides will give you a hint on how to make a flavorful, economical, delicious, nutritious and healthy stock.

Use Cold Water To Yield Clearer Stock

Remember to save fish, meat or poultry bones and vegetables trimmings during cooking, then you can make a difference and turn these kitchen scraps and leftovers into flavorful homemade stocks. To extract the most flavors from stock ingredients, put the fish, meat or poultry bones, aromatic vegetables, herbs and cold water (Note : not hot water) into a stockpot. As cold water heats up gradually, the liquid extract the flavors from stock ingredients slowly. Furthermore, certain proteins such as albumin will only dissolve in cold water. Therefore, starting with cold water helps to release the albumin which will in turn help to clarify a stock. This will give us a clearer stock.

Use Tall & Narrow Stockpot To Minimize Liquid Loss

Use a stockpot that is tall and narrow to minimize liquid loss due to evaporation. When the stock reaches a rolling boil, reduce the heat to a bare simmer for the remaining hours, just below the boiling point.

Slow Simmering To Maximize Flavors Extraction

Slowly simmer the stock uncovered and avoid excessive boiling. A violent boil will interrupt clarification process and result in a cloudy stock. For simmering, temperature should be in between 185°F and 205°F when measured with an instant-read thermometer. Long hours (4 to 6 hours) slow simmering is essential to extract all the subtle flavors out from the bones, herbs and vegetables.

Skim Off Scum, Do Not Stir And Strain The Stock To Ensure Proper Clarification Process

Periodically skim off and scoop away the frothy scum and impurities that rises to the stock surface. Do not stir the stock while cooking as this will mix the fats with the stock and make the stock cloudy. To ensure proper clarification process with all the remaining solid ingredients discarded, strain the stock through a fine-mesh colander or sieve at the end of simmering, and if possible, line your sieve with a couple layers of cheesecloth.

Freeze In Ice Cubes Tray To Lengthen Stock's Shelf Life

Let it cools down before being refrigerated. To accelerate the cooling process, you can put the whole stockpot into a kitchen sink filled with water and ice cubes. Once the stock has chilled in the cold water bath, any remaining fat will have risen to the top and solidified. At this point, there should be three easily-discernable layers. Discard or skimmed off the top most fat layer, then transfer the remaining portion into ice cube trays and freeze. If you want, you can pop out and transfer these frozen stock cubes to a Ziploc bags or Tupperware in your freezer, so that you always have some precisely measured, small amounts of stocks come in handy when it comes to cooking. The frozen stock cubes can be stored up to three months but if the stock is not refrigerated in freezer compartment, it will only lasts up to five days.

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