Basic meat stock

Most people know how to make soup stock, but often home made soup stock ends up tasting bland... Am I right? I found this perfect recipe for soup stock and made it more do-able and timely for myself! I hope you will enjoy my method!

Three major differences in my method:

1) roasting bones and veggies before you start

2) mixed bone broth

3) salt

First you need to pick your bones. I have done this with left over turkey carcasses or chicken too. But the best stock has a mixture of foul and cattle bones. It gives your stock a nice rounded flavour. So go to your supermarket and find some bones!

I bought whatever is cheapest. Two turkey thighs, 5 chicken legs and a pkg of frozen beef soup bones (thawed). 

First thing is first! If you are thrifty like me, cut the meat off your birds and cook it up for later use. 

Clearly I am not a professional butcher. Even if you will be using this meat for your soup later on it doesn't need to come off looking pretty. But reserving your meat and cooking it separately from your stock will allow the meat to retain some of it's flavour so it stands out in your finished soup. I was not very clean with my cutting so there is still plenty of meat attached to the bones for flavouring the stock. 

Keep all the fat and skin too because it adds flavour. You can cool and remove 100% of the fat at the very end. 

Next comes roasting! So spread your bones out evenly, leaving lots of space for veggies on the pans. I used three glass pans so everything will get evenly roasted and I can scrape off drippings without wrecking a pan. 

Choose your veggies. I always use plenty of onion and cellary and I am a little less generous with carrots since they tend to over-power with a sweeter flavour in the broth. Soup stock is excellent with A roasted tomato or two. It really helps to deepen the color and does not at all turn it into a tomato broth. For this batch I didn't have any handy. Garlic is more of a spice, but since it gets roasted I included it here. 

Cut all veggies into large pieces and separate into your casseroles. 

Another thing that adds flavour is the onion and garlic skins as well as the cellary leaves. These would burn during roasting so just stick them right into your stock pot. 

Now roast your veggies at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, rotating and stirring everything every 15 minutes. 

Once you add it all to your stock pot, cover the bones and veggies with water. Do not completely fill your stock pot yet, because you will add water in a little bit. 

This is called letting the stock rest. You just let things soak for 15 minutes or so. You can add a tbsp or two of vinegar to this to help draw juices out of bone marrow. I forgot to with this batch. 

Now you are left with this... But actually this is good!! Cover the crusty areas if your pans with water, and pop them back into the oven for 15 minutes to soak. Leave the heat on for this. 

Pull them out, scrape them and put it all into your stock pot!! There is excellent flavour in those pan crusties!

See how dark the stock is already? It hadn't even been on the stove top yet! 

Now top up your stock pot to its max capacity and bring it to a boil. Simmer for 8-12 hours (all day)

I love my giant Costco stock pot... :)

When you are ready for making super, use a strainer to label out the amount of broth you need, then top up your stock pot and let it continue simmering into the evening. I only strain my stock right before bed. 

Make your soup...I use some meat reserved from earlier, and a bunch of carrots, cellary and onions. Simmer it all for 20-30 minutes, boil up some noodles, rice or barley, and add that to your finished soup!

Tada!!

To strain, use a big bowl or another stock pot, place the strainer over it and laidle stock into clean pots. Once strained, you can rinse out your big stock pot and put the clean broth in there for fridge storage. 

If you have a pressure canner, you can can this stock. Otherwise I like to freeze it in 1 cup portions in zip-lock baggies. 

Basic meat stock (this particular batches proportions. This is not a science, change the proportions however you desire)

- 2.5-3 kg mixed meat/bones (this was before removing meat from foul)

- 3 med onions

- 6 lg cellary stocks

-4 lg carrots

-6 lg garlic cloves

-6-8 bay leaves

- 1 tbsp peppercorns 

- 1 tbsp sea salt

- 1 1/2 star anise

Remove any large amounts of meat and cook for later use. Cut veggies and garlic into large chunks and roast with bones at 425 degrees, for 45 min, stirring every 15 minutes. Put everything into stock pot. Soak pans and scrape drippings into stock pot as well. Add enough water to make 14 quarts. Bring to a boil and simmer all day. Strain and can or freeze stock.