Comments on: In Defense of Water

By: Ana

Ana — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

@skippy: Canned or packaged broth usually tastes insipid and too salty if you’re used to making your own. I always store rendered fat from roasted chicken in the fridge and add a couple tbsp to a pot of water when making soups. I haven’t used the canned stuff in ages, and I don’t miss it.

Regarding garlic presses? They often take much more time to clean than to use, they can make garlic taste acrid, and you can’t really use them for anything else. Then again, I’m no fan of most single-function kitchen gadgets. I concede their usefulness if you don’t feel like chopping stuff.

By: Frances

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

We have roast chicken a couple of times a week and always make stock from the leftover bones and bits. It’s probably the most hassle-free thing we do in the kitchen.

By: skippy

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

I make my own stock often, and it is indeed a wondrous (and easy) thing.

But if there are any two things that foodies rant about that I just don’t get it’s canned broth and garlic presses.

Cooking up some simple brown rice with all water vs. 50% canned chicken broth is no contest, and sometimes I don’t feel like chopping anything.

Take that!

By: barbara

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

I prefer water for creamed vegetable soups. I find stock can overtake the taste of some vegetables. I keep homemade chicken stock in the freezer for heavier soups.

By: Ms. Glaze

Ms. Glaze — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

Perhaps this is a really stupid question. But why can we not find really good canned or bottled chicken stock? Why!!?!? I hate swanson’s (it’s murky), detest the Whole Foods brand (it tastes like carrots) and can’t handle the saltiness in bouillon cubes.

I sub water or wine when I’m making simple meat/fish sauce reductions. I also prefer to use water in soups if I’m making a single vegetable soup. For example if I’m making zucchini soup I will simmer the zuc’s in water and then use that same water to purée it. Or corn for that matter.

By: Sara

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

I make my own stock, but I get a little panicky when I start to run low – I need to just get over it and use water instead!

By: diego

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

Water really is a great ingredient. I find it peculiar that more cooks don’t make flavored broths or short stocks out of more distinguishable ingredients. Instead of stock to cook you risotto, why not use a quick caramelized onion stock or parsnip broth?

By: Cygnetos

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

My favorite trick is to roast a spice rubbed chicken
to perfection either on the grill or in the oven then save the bones and crunchy tasty bits for stock.
The spices used on the chicken and the subsequent ingredients tossed into the stock pot along with the gnawed bones and detris determine where this stock will be used. But aside from the bits and pieces the largest ingredient is water.
Where would we be without water?
I could live without sex, but not water.

By: Maura

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

If I decide that I want to make pasta e fagioli (one of the few soups I make on a regular basis) and don’t have chicken stock in the freezer, I throw a vegetable stock together. As NYCook says, it’s fast and easy. I like having veg stock around because some of my friends are vegan.

I was feeling like hell the other night, and one of my friends made some egg drop soup for me. She used a quart sized carton of Swanson’s fat free/MSG free broth. (If you do use broth that’s marked MSG free, please note that it’s still loaded with salt – 940 grams per serving). God bless her, she was trying to help. I had to eat it.

I pulled two bags of chicken parts out of the freezer today. There’s stock cooling on the stove right now. *Sigh* it’s a wonderful thing.

By: heather

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

My mom taught me how to make stock when I was a little girl. She always roasted the bones, added the usual suspects of carrot, celery, onion. Herbs…and covered with water. I still make stock weekly. I find it adds a nice flavour layer to my carrot and butternut squash soup.Also a great way to get squash into my 5 and 2 year old boys.

By: luis

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

While I agree that supermarket stock is bad and insipid. I often use restaurant supply stock bases to add flavor to pastas and rices and to start soups and sauces and braises if don’t have sufficient drippings. Bases from such as “Le Gout”, ” Kitchen Essentials” are fine.

Of course fresh stock is best but It’s time consuming and a real bother for the modern home cook. At the restaurant supply store I can even find brown sauce bases and demi-glazes. It’s a short cut a home cook press for time can live with most of the time.

High quality water is essential and there is NO COMPROMISE there. NONE!. Makes all the difference.

By: Kate in the NW

Kate in the NW — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I predict that after this post the Stock Market will crash.

(Sorry. I’m just that kind of person. Please forgive me.)

By: Tags

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

Another important thing to remember – no calories.

Volumetrics (rated best diet method by Consumer Reports) reminds us that broth-based soups are best for flavor-to-calorie ratio.

By: NYCook

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

Chicken stock recipe from my old Little Black CIA Book. The ratio is the same for chicken as it would be for lamb or beef. Only cooking times differ.

8# bones
6QT h2o
1# mirepoix
Sachet d’epices- 3 parsley stems, 5 crushed black peppercorns, 2 thyme sprigs, 1 bay leaf, and 1 crushed garlic clove.

Put bones in pot, cover with water. Water should be about 2 inches above bones. SLOWLY bring stock to boil, reduce to simmer 3-4 hours add mirepoix and sachet, and simmer 1 more hour. Strain and Save. DON’T FORGET TO SKIM or you will get a nsty cloudy stock. and you can forget about a consomme.

Honestly, if you are to lazy to do this why even bother with the rest.

By: neil

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

Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned, not just canned stock but powder as well. I feel cursed and dirty whenever the dark angel whispers so seductively in my ear.

How many Hail Mary’s will that be?

By: NYCook

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

Ruhlman, couldn’t agree with you more. The canned “stock” is an abbomination. If you aren’t like US. People who just happen to have more stock then you know what to do with laying around make a simple veg stock and use that as a base of your soup.Take a pot fill it up chop up a load of veg and simmer half hour to 45 minutes and your strait. Don’t forget a Sachet! In the words of the victim of your previous post “Make stock already! It’s easy! Life without stock is barely worth living, and you will never attain demi-glace without it.”

By: FoodPuta

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

I really have to say, that after the first thread regarding water and stock that Ruhlman posted, it has definitely changed the way I cook. Between Pardus, and Delgrosso, it forced me to test the theories. I fully admit I always had a box or two of those blue and white Swansons, chicken and beef stock. I wouldn’t have thought to make a soup using water straight from the tap. Now, if I don’t have my own stock (which I now go out of my way to roast a chicken, or query the butcher for Lambs shank bones, just to make stock. I just use tap water. One of the things that I feel like it has improved in my soups, is consistency in flavor. I don’t really have and explanation for that.
So much of my kitchen behavior has changed from this. I always look at what vegetables I have left in my fridge, and before they go bad, they usually end up in a simple stock. As before, they ended up being ground down the drain with the disposal.
Anyway, I think this is one of the best topics you have covered on here.

Water is the base of life…..

By: TJB

TJB — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 06:00:00 +0000

I clearly have an unrefined palate. I’ve made soup with both canned stock and water and greatly prefer the stock. Is it as good as homemade stock? Of course not, but it’s not nearly as awful as Ruhlman and other foodies like to rant.

By: Nila

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

Michael, you are SO right! I remember my mother making the most AWESOME chicken/beef/vegetable soups at home and she never, EVER used anything but water. The idea of buying canned chicken broth would have been incomprehensible to her. And her soups always came out tasting wonderful. I agree with another poster here that it does depend on the quality of the water where you live, but I am blessed to live in NYC where the tap water is arguably among the best in the country. Still, I once did try using pre-packaged chicken broth for a recipe that I tried for the first time and I was not impressed by the flavor that I got. There was a weird almost tinny kind of undertone to the liquid that marred what might otherwise have been good soup. That was strange, too, since I made a point of not buying the canned variety but rather the kind that comes in the waxy cartons like milk does and still it had a tinny undertaste. Needless to say, that was my last foray into the world of pre-packaged broths.

Peace!

By: Elisa

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

You are so right. I am about a novice home cook as they come, but I do make my grandmother’s simple chicken soup recipe with “chicken on the bone,” as we call it, and WATER, and it is about 50 times better than any soup recipe in any well-known TV chef’s cookbook that calls for low-sodium canned chicken broth.

Real stock with real gelatin gives soup the right texture that the canned stuff just can’t deliver. And I’m not even going to talk about flavor. . . .