Starting this blog has been a long time coming. Over the past few years I have had several articles published pertaining to food and food security, topics that are very close to my heart. For the next while, I will be posting previously published articles, and once I have run out of those, I will start posting some new material on the topic. I love what I do, and I hope you find these articles useful.
Sean
BASIC EQUIPMENT & STOCKS
Originally Published in Nanaimo's More Living Magazine
In the high speed, high stress pace of what has become the standard of our lives, it seems like an old-fashioned home cooked meal is becoming a thing of the past, or a best a weekend affair. A common misconception is that a good meal takes too long to prepare, but there is no rule that says a meal has to be made all in one sitting. With a few basic staples, inexpensive kitchen equipment, and some pre-preparation, anyone can make a quality meal for themselves or their families in under an hour. Today we are going to look at what equipment one should have on hand to make this possible, and how to make a stock – the single most important staple in any kitchen.
Let’s start with equipment. The list of things you will need to aid you in making fast and great meals are; a half decent crock-pot, a cheap coffee grinder, a food processor, a fine mesh strainer, and if you feed a large number of people on a regular basis, a good-sized stock pot would be a good idea – but a crock-pot will work in most cases. All these items are available inexpensively at any department store except for a fine mesh strainer, which you can find at any specialty-cooking store; barring that, you can always use a regular strainer in combination with some cheesecloth.
Secondly you will need to have on hand the basic staples that you will use in all your cooking. These items include: butter, fresh garlic (not that dried stuff), shallots, sea salt (I prefer the coarse over the fine), whole black peppercorns, Tabasco sauce, whole lemons, good quality wine (both red and white) and fresh herbs. The other ‘blend’ that you should have on hand at any given time is the French triad of onions, carrots and celery, unless you are doing a lot of Creole cooking, where their triad is onions, carrots and green peppers.
Now that you have all the essentials you need to cook like a chef, I’m going to let you in on one of the biggest secrets of cooking. Go to your cupboards where you keep all your dried ingredients, find those soup bases – you know the ones – they are either in cube form or a powder sealed in a package. Throw them directly in the trash because today you are going to make stock.
The first thing you need to make stock is bones, and to start off with, we are going to make a chicken stock since it’s the base for all good cooking. You can still find chicken bones, necks or feet (all of which are good for stock) at your local grocer, but if you are having problems finding bones, try your local butcher. If they don’t have any, they will know where to get some locally. Get just enough to fill your crock-pot about 2/3 full. What we want to do is save you some time and still have the basic ingredients on hand when the time comes. You can start making your stock right before you go to bed. Put the bones in the crock-pot with a medium onion (skin off), a coarse-chopped carrot, a stalk of celery (remember that French triad?), a clove of garlic, 2-3 whole black peppercorns and a couple of sprigs of mild fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, parsley and oregano). If you are feeling risque, throw in ½ a piece of star anise, a seed of cardamom and 1 whole clove. Cover all this with water, place the lid on, turn on the crock-pot and go to bed. Chicken stock takes eight to ten hours to simmer and extract the flavors, proteins and gelatins from the bones, so when you get up in the morning, your stock should be ready. Drain the hot liquid through your fine mesh strainer, cool and freeze what you are not going to use in the next couple of days. Try to keep a couple of liters of stock in your freezer at all times. If you need to make larger quantities than your crock-pot will hold, you can do the same thing with a stockpot on your stovetop over low heat.
You can also make stock with beef bones, but try to use the shanks or knuckles as they have the most gelatins and flavor. Once you gain confidence making stock, you can make brown stock with beef, duck or venison bones which is done by roasting the bones and vegetables (add tomato paste to your roasting vegetables) on low heat for a couple of hours to brown before putting them in your crock-pot or stock-pot. Fish stocks can be made from the bones of lean white fish like halibut and sole, but once they come up to a simmer only need to be cooked for 45 minutes, and avoid boiling your stock at all cost – just keep it at a low simmer. Stocks are the magic cooking base that is used to make everything from soup and rice, and are excellent when used as a braising liquid for vegetables and other meats. Next time you make rice, use stock instead of water and you will be amazed at the flavor difference. Using stock in every day cooking will turn the ordinary meal into a fantastic one.
