The first step to flavour

Stock is the basis of all my cooking. It gives a reassuring richness, unctuousness and a worldly goodness to the taste of food, (or perhaps it’s just a trigger to say protein is on the way…)

Stock is the fundamental building block in professional kitchens. Stock is the basis of veloute, one of Escoffier’s designated five ‘mother’ sauces, and from this one can make over 10 derivative variations. I have ventured into the world of classical sauce making. I have roasted bones, (with and without tomato puree); I have made demi-glace; no doubt I have unwittingly stumbled into a sauce Bordelaise…

But however seriously you take your sauce making – from haute cuisine to humble gravy – you will always need to start with a good stock.

Of course making stock requires the accumulation of bones. Easy in a restaurant but more time consuming at home. I buy whole chickens and remove all the meat – the meat and the bones go separately into the freezer in several plastic bags. Otherwise, we might save the bones from a whole roast chicken. I avoid lamb bones as they give a pronounced flavour to the stock. A few ham bones or beef bones are good. According to most cookery books, we should all be using veal bones. But what they do not explain is where to get veal bones? Should we try to find out? I’m not sure, one needs to draw the line somewhere on the matter of procuring bones…

Ingredients (makes four to six litres of stock)

Approx 3 litres in volume of chicken bones – can include one or two ham hock bones or beef bones. Include several chicken wings with meat.

2 large carrots

2 large celery sticks

2 large onions

1 large leek – just the rough tops of the leek removed

4 bay leaves

Equipment

6lt – 11lt stock pot

500ml plastic pots for putting stock in the freezer – about eight to ten.

Method