Bone Broth
As my batch of beef broth was gone, decided to make a big batch of beef stock. I thought I would take some pictures along the way and share in this post. Although it’s not much effort, it takes a lot of cooking time and quite some dishwashing is needed during and after preparing.
I’ve reduced the stock, so I can have a bigger portion in the freezer, as all you take out is the liquid, which makes the reduced stock having a very strong taste. Once done, you either cool them in icecube-holders or after cooling down cut in small cubes (due to the gelatine from the bones it will turn into jelly).
I’ve listed the ingredients I’ve used, but you can add some herbs/flavours you like. Also you could add some beef
Ingredients
- 2 kg beef bones (you should be get them from your butcher)
- 4-6 liter of water (you need to make sure all ingredients are covered in water while cooking)
- 1 leek
- 1 large onion
- 100 gr celeriac
- 2 pcs of celery
- 1 large carrot
- 4 cloves of garlic
- thyme
- parsley
- mace
- bay leaves
- juniper berries, crushed
- peppercorns, crushed
- salt (quite a bit)
- tomato paste or fresh tomatoes
Preparation
Let’s start with the bones
Preheat the oven to 250°C – place the bones in an oven tray and roast in the oven for 45min to 1 hour – keep an eye at the end so the bones don’t burn.
After the bones are ready, transfer in a soup pan (don’t transfer the fat!!), and fill with cold water. Bring the pan to the boil and let it boil for some minutes. After some time you see some foam at the surface, scoop that off until you have clear water.
Adding the vegetables
Don’t bother peeling the vegetables, but quickly wash them to rinse of all soil. Cut them in pieces. Cut the onion in half, and fry them in a frying pan until they are caramalized. Together with skin this will give a nice color to the stock.
Let’s cook
Now we add the vegetables, spices, herbs and tomatoe paste to the water with bones and bring them close to the boil (I actually had to distribute of 2 pans, it doesn’t need to be exactly 50-50 as in the end it all comes together again..
Lower to heat to low and let it simmer for a long time (I usually leave it overnight as I have induction cooking it’s safe from my point of view).
Time to finish
All the flavours are now infused in the water, and it got a rich color. Remove the bones and vegetables from the stock. If you like the marrow you can scrape it out of the bone for later used. Pass the soup through a sieve, if you want a very clear stock you can also pass through a cheesecloth. As you cooked a long time, don’t rush this part!
Almost done….
You now have a nice stock, which could be used as base for a soup or sauce. But in order to save it for later use I suggest to take one more step, which mostly will some of your time, mainly waiting time.
Let’s reduce
Now let’s get rid of some excess water, intensifying the taste of the stock. In this case it will take up less space in your freezer.
The only thing left to do is cooldown, portion and freeze for later use. As you removed a lot of water, when using it, add enough water to have a good tasting bouillion. If you added too much water, you can of course another portion of stock.
Enjoy!
Awesome! Thanks for this great addition. This provides some inspiration for improving my beef broth recipe. 🙂