forget the packets: try a homemade beef stock!

Ingredients and utensils for making beef stock — Transform your meals:

the call to adventure in homemade stocks

So, to all you foodies out there, let me ask a question? How many of the meals you choose to prepare include a sauce, gravy or something resembling such an accompaniment?

If you do like a sauce but prefer to buy something from the shelf that houses the dried packet variety, okay, I’ll forgive you. But only once. What you must simply do is to assign a wet weekend to making your own beef stock. It’ll change your life, I promise.

There are many stocks you can search for online and in some books. However, this narrative you’ve just started reading shall offer something on a much higher level than what you might get somewhere else for one reason; it took me three and a half hours just to write it!

There are 3 steps involved so let’s not be too hasty here…..

Step 1 – Choosing the right ingredients: a guide to quality and flavour

Beef Bones

Please don’t even begin to look for these in a supermarket. You’ll not find ‘em. Look for a local butcher ahead of when you need the bones and order 1kg of bones that include marrow bones and beef shank, or shin. If he throws in knuckles all well and good but you must start thinking about what vessel you’ll be cooking them in on the cooktop. You don’t want a full beef shoulder that is a metre in length because you’ll be spending all your time trying to cut it up to fit into the pot and messing up a good blade.

If the bones the butcher offers are a bit big, ask the fella to cut them up into manageable sections. There’s something both therapeutic and macabre about watching a butcher use a vertical, oscillating electric blade to slice through large bones. The marrow bones should have that marrow still in the bone which adds to the flavour. If there’s some meat on the bone, great but not important. You can also choose to add a pork hock or knuckle to the bag just to give the stock an edge but don’t pick up anything that’s salty. Your call.

Beef Meat

Buy 2kg of meat. This, you can get from a supermarket but in truth, I suggest you also buy it from the butcher. If you choose this option, he may not charge you for the bones. But once again, it’s about looking after your local outlets. That’s outlets, not cutlets!

Ask for the cheapest cuts like braising beef. If you choose the supermarket look at the price per kilo for any boneless item and then challenge yourself to find a label close by with a cheaper price. There are usually specials around. Not that I’m tight fisted, but I can eat an apple through a letterbox.

Veggies

One bunch of celery, half a dozen large carrots and two large onions. Essentially enough of each to fill close to a 2-litre jug when chopped up. If you have leftover veg in the fridge that’s looking a bit floppy, bung these into the recipe, too. Avoid the bag of liquid cucumber sitting at the bottom of the drawer!
Garlic
Optional but a few large cloves, skin on are fine.
Herbs
Make a bouquet garni by tying together with some string, a few sprigs of parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme. You really just need to remember the Simon and Garfunkel song but don’t expect to find any herbs called Mrs Robinson. Four or five fresh bay leaves, too, but not part of the bouquet.

Spices

The only spice I would add to a beef stock are whole peppercorns. About a dozen, any colour.

Oil

Use good olive oil for the stock but not too much; about 4 tablespoons. By the way, olive oil is expensive in supermarkets. Look for it in a Chinese supermarket; less choice yes but it’s half the price!

Step 2 – Cooking: a detailed guide to making your own beef stock

Best time to start making the stock is before 10am in the morning.

Heat the oven to 250ºC, 500ºF, gas mark 10. Or its highest setting. It’ll take a quarter of an hour to reach temperature so be patient. Fan ovens may not need to be as high but it doesn’t really matter. You just want the oven bloody hot!
You can now use the time to prepare the veg, chopped into small chunks roughly the size of cherry tomatoes.
Chop the meat into cubes but they don’t need to be small as the veg. 1½ inch square (about 4cm) is about right.
On a large oven baking tray lay out the beef bones on a sheet of heavy duty foil. Don’t add any oil.
When the oven’s ready, slide the tray into the middle for one hour.
Now, heat the largest stockpot you have on a medium to high heat. If you don’t have one, the best quality stock pots have a thick base and are usually made from a high quality stainless steel. I have always found that the better the quality and higher the price, the longer you’ll have it and will use it more often.
When hot, put in the olive oil.
When the oil is hot, throw in all the vegetables but not the garlic. You don’t really want that lovely aroma of fried garlic messing with the base stock.
Turn the heat down to medium and cook the veggies, stirring from time to time and browning all of it until the onions have that dark brown appearance. This will take the same time as the browning bones.
Approx. one hour in, when the bones are dark brown and maybe smoking, remove the tray from the oven and carefully place the bones one by one, onto the top of the browned veggies.
Add the uncooked chunks of beef that should bring the level up to about two-thirds of the pot.
Cover with cold tap water to a level a couple of inches above the meat.
Put in the bouquet garni, bay leaves, peppercorns and garlic cloves.
Bring to the boil on a high heat.
Do not add salt.
You’ll soon see some scum forming on the surface. Please do not remove the scum. In truth, it’s a waste of time because scum is fat and with the bones, meat and oil the fat is what will give you extra flavour.
Turn the heat to a setting as low as possible and put the lid on the pot. Do not stir the pot!
You’ll soon see the scum dissipate and in a couple of hours watch the liquids turn completely clear without a cloud to be seen.
Simmer for 8 hours or longer until you go to bed checking on rare occasions that the simmering is just barely noticeable.