Comments on: Blymire’s Veal Stock

By: Pulled pork

Pulled pork — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I found the recipe on your blog with cover info. Please disregard previous posting question.

By: Pulled pork

Pulled pork — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Regarding the Elements recipe for veal stock. When the pot is in the oven, is it covered or uncovered?

I always did the stock stove top uncovered. What is your reasoning behind oven cooking method for the home cook?

Love your books and blog. Thank you for sharing.

By: Nessa

Nessa — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Wow, my first time stumbling across this blog, what fabulous info. As a general food porn/foodie/whatever you want to call it I make my own stock too, and what a difference in makes in everything. Like some of you I also toss mine into ice cube trays for easy reach – and have tried my hand and demi glace too from said stock.

I wanted to throw out a comment about stock recipes though. For some time and with reasonable sucess I have kept a ’stock bag’ in my freezer. Generically, one for chicken and one for beef. The chicken one seems to fill up more quickly as bone in chicken seems more common fare. But..a simple plastic bag in my freezer is where the ends of chopped onions, shallots, celery leaves, all manor of chicken and duck bones end up. On ’stock day’ I will study the contents of said bag, decide if I need more onion or more carrot or what not and then separate the bones from the vegetables for a pan roasting before they bubble away in my stock pot.

The frozen vegetables coupled with fresh herbs from the garden produce a fine result, I assure you. Also, I like this method, as a home cook its reassuring to know that I am saving all those ‘lovely bones’

By: Linda

Linda — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I’m an Alice Waters kind of person…. I like sustainable… and I think there is a place for veal stock in cooking, depending on what a person is making. I love to make veal stock, and I really love to reduce it and reduce it and when it’s really thick and salty I freeze it in ice cube trays to toss into future delectable delights.

Every chicken we eat becomes stock….and duck and turkey and I even turn ham and pork and lamb bones into stock for dishes that are made with that kind of meat like a split pea and ham soup or a black bean feijoada or a lamb and white bean soup and the possibilities are endless.

By: Natalie Sztern

Natalie Sztern — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

so which in either of ur opinions would be the best tasting meat: milk fed or grain fed?

By: Mal Carne

Mal Carne — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Natalie, it’s been my experience (granted it’s been nearly 10 years since I stopped cooking veal) that the milk fed is a superior product in color, texture, and flavor. The “baby beef” is certainly more tender and has a more delicate flavor than it’s adult counterpart, but it is significantly more “beefy” in it’s reddish coloring and flavor than milk fed veal.

By: Bob delGrosso

Bob delGrosso — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

NY Cook
As long as you can get the backing, it’s not that difficult to create food that the public and critics will love if you use extremely expensive ingredients and spend 10X more man-hours working the food and dining room than anyone else. But to cook well, and garner praise by using ordinary ingredients and without having to put 3 cooks on every plate is a truly great accomplishment, I believe.

All cooks, even line cooks, have to decide which path they are going to walk. Do we want to model ourselves after the example of Marco Pierre White or would we like to emulate say, Alice Waters or Fernand Point?

By: NYCook

NYCook — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Hey I know it’s crazy and he even admits it as being excessive but thats why he is who he is. Who am I to argue, I’m a poor line cook and he’s the youngest dude ever with three stars, who has an empire to run. I do agree with you delGroso as a cook just hearing about that kind of waste makes me crazy but, in his defense after further review of that passage he says the chickens were to dry to serve to customers, but still 30….?

By: Vincent

Vincent — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Doodad – thanks man…I was in Dallas today and picked one up after I read your post. Great idea.

NY Cook – I think you misread. I’ll check my copy but that sounds ridiculous.

By: ruhlman

ruhlman — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

natalie, i’d be very surprised if even the most discerning palate could tell the difference in the stock. if you mean the meat, then i imagine there is a difference.

By: Bob delGrosso

Bob delGrosso — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Natalie
I agree with Ruhlman, and will go one step further and suggest that anyone who claims to be able to tell the difference in flavor between stock made from bones from milk fed veal and stock made from grass or grain fed is full of bouillon. There are however, major differences between the meat of milk fed and grain-fed and pastured veal. And milk fed confined veal is even more different than the others -and much creepier.

By: Natalie Sztern

Natalie Sztern — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I know this is a bit off topic but does it matter in the taste if the veal has been milk fed vs grain fed…or is that just a marketing tool too…cause in montreal there is a great emphasis on milk fed veal as if it is the creme of veals (no joke meant)

By: Bob delGrosso

Bob delGrosso — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

NY Cook

“roast 30 chickens a day with weights on them just for the juice and throw them away”

One of the great things about veal stock is that it is parsimonious and uses up stuff that might otherwise be thrown away. Using the juice from a roast to make a sauce is parsimonious too but roasting chickens, taking off the juices and tossing the carcasses is so wrong on so many levels it makes my teeth hurt. That’s the kind of stuff that got the French aristocracy decapitated in the 18th century.

I’d love to see what an old school chef like Escoffier or Fernand Point, or Bocuse would do with a cook who did that.

Wow, I hope you misread that book. I doubt it, but I can hope.

By: ruhlman

ruhlman — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

nycook, it doesn't mask the flavor of food. roasting 30 chickens a day for the juice sounds like a lunatic idea. but i don't disagree that chefs of his caliber or say jean-georges can get by just fine without veal stock. they're really good good cooks. what's so great about veal stock is that it stands to seriously elevate the caliber of the home cook's dishes. Here's amazon link to Devil in the Kitchen, out in paper next month.

By: Doodad

Doodad — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Vincent,

Wort chillers available from homebrew shops do the trick. Hooks to your sink and I run the supply through and ice bath before the copper tube that is sitting in the stockpot.

Cools five gallons of boiling liquid in less than a half hour.

By: NYCook

NYCook — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Ruhlman, I was curious to know your thoughts about Marco Piere Whites view on Veal stock. In reading his book, devil in the kitchen, I was very suprised to find out he doesn’t use veal stock at all in ANY of his cooking any more. He says it masks the flavor of the food. He is a big proponent of natural juices. He would roast 30 chickens a day with weights on them just for the juice and throw them away or use them for family when he was done. Three star michelin chef who cooks extremly classic french food who uses no veal stock. What are your thoughts. By the way if anyone hasn’t read the book it is a must read.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Since we’re asking stock questions, are there any special concerns doing pork stock? I’ve got 1 bone from a roasted pork shoulder sitting in my freezer, and will probably have an assortment of bones from another pork shoulder and pork dishes I’ve been waiting to try. I’m guessing it’s more or less the same as doing any other stock?

By: amber

amber — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

thanks for all the info. much appreciated!

By: Vincent

Vincent — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Cooling stocks is tricky at home. I have always used food chiller tubes professionally – but they are a little big for 2 quarts of stock. When I make stock at home I prep a cooling bag the day before. I fill a large (1 gallon) zip top freezer bag halfway with water and freeze it solid. I then open and reseal with all the air out, put it in another zip bag, take out the air and seal, and repeat this twice more (4 bags total). When the stock is done I toss the ice bag in the pot and it cools it much faster than from the outside in, allowing sink space, less money on ice and most importantly the least amount of time in the “danger” zone of temperature when cooling foods before storage.

It is most important to get as much air as possible out of the bags, otherwise you have a floater and the cold will insulate inside the bags.

By: chadzilla

chadzilla — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

It’s good to see a reference to remouillage in the home kitchen. We always ran a re-wetting of the bones back in the day, and I always heard my chef refer to the remouillage (although I could not find a literary reference to it… and there was no internet). We used shortened names like demi and remi to refer to the 2 versions of veal stock. The remi was used for soups and cooking rices or other dishes while the demi went mostly into sauces. It’s an economical thing to do.