Chris Berry On The Net

There are only a couple of things that I really miss about operating a cooking school. The 3000 square foot commercial kitchen was definitely nice, but I’m getting used to working in the cramped quarters at home. What I haven’t gotten used to is no longer having access to a wide range of ingredients that are only available through wholesale distributors. When was the last time you found a 5 pound tub of clarified butter in your local supermarket? It’s the kind of thing you can make easily enough at home, but it sure is handy when someone else has already done the work.

The one ingredient that I’ve had the hardest time living without is veal knuckles. What’s a veal knuckle? It’s the knee joint of a calf, and it is the essential ingredient required to make a proper veal stock. Veal bones are used since the animals are slaughtered before they are fully calcified. This means that there is a much higher percentage of gelatinous material in the form of cartilage than what is found in the bones of adult animals. It is this dissolved cartilage that gives veal stock such remarkable qualities. It will actually set up exactly like jell-o when refrigerated.

We made large batches of veal stock several times a year at Foodies and kept it frozen in 1 quart vacuum pouches. I spoke to the new owner a few days ago and asked if he might have a quart or two in the freezer he would be willing to part with. What I got was beyond my wildest expectations. My freezer is now stocked with 17 quarts of this liquid gold.

Typical home cooks probably have no idea why this is so exciting. In fact, 99.9% of you are probably wondering why the hell I would want frozen pouches of veal stock crammed into every nook and cranny in my freezer. After all, if one of these things falls out when I open the door it will probably break my foot. The remaining .1% of you understand that a broken foot is a small price to pay for such a treasure.

There are two reasons why this is such a big deal. First of all, veal stock is an essential ingredient in a variety of sauces, and one for which there is simply no substitute. It is commonly reduced to a very concentrated form and combined with tomato paste and a red wine reduction to make a modern variation on the classical demi-glace recipe. It is most highly treasured in this form. It can be used as a sauce by itself, or it can add an incredible richness and complexity to other sauce variations. A couple of teaspoons of this concentrate can turn an ordinary stew or pot roast into something with a depth of flavor you never imagined possible.

The other reason why I am so excited about my newly acquired treasure trove is that veal stock in one of those things that is nearly impossible to make at home. Sure, you can do it assuming you can find the necessary ingredients, but even then it is highly impractical.

The first step is locating the required bones. In reality, you can make stock from any veal bones, but the knuckles are best since they contain the highest percentage of cartilage and the least fat. Keep in mind that many recipes for Osso Bucco mistakenly refer to veal shanks as knuckles. These are actually two very different things, so make sure you are getting the knee joints.

Unless you shop in one of the few grocery stores that still cut meat on the premises, it is highly unlikely that you will ever find what you are looking for in a supermarket. If you are lucky enough to have a real butcher shop nearby, it is likely to be your best bet. If not, make friends with someone in the restaurant business and ask them to order some for you through their distributor. Keep in mind, if you go this route you will have to purchase a 50 pound case of frozen knuckles, and you should be prepared to pay close to $100.00 if your friend doesn’t mark it up.

Here is where things start to get complicated. Most of us don’t have walk-in freezers at home, so we are immediately faced with the challenge of what to do with 50 pounds of frozen bones. The answer is that without storage capacity, you have to use them all at once. The first step in making stock is to roast the bones for 4 hours until they are very dark brown. At Foodies, I had 4 large convection ovens, so roasting 50 pounds of bones at one time was no problem. If you only have one oven at home, assume that it will take you a minimum of 12 to 16 hours to cook the bones in batches. You will also want to add some roasted vegetable to the stock, so throw in 4 or 5 pounds of chopped carrots, onions and celery with each batch for the last hour of cooking time.

Now that you have 50 pounds of roasted bones, it’s time to make your stock. Do you have an 80 quart pot at home? While that’s the way it’s done in very large restaurants, most folks find it easier to work in smaller batches. At Foodies, I divided my bones into four 24 quart pots to make life easier. The problem most of you will face is that the largest pot you have at home is probably only 6 or 8 quarts. Large aluminum stock pots are pretty inexpensive, but most people wouldn’t have anywhere to store one, much less four of them. If you could find a place to keep it, it wouldn’t fit in your kitchen sink, and depending on the height of your exhaust fan, it may not even fit on your stovetop. Your only options for washing it would be the bathtub or a garden hose.

Recommended cooking times vary, but I usually like to simmer my stock for 16 to 18 hours. Keep in mind that’s in addition to the time required to roast the bones. Unless you are prepared to go 24 hours without sleep, that means leaving several pots simmering overnight. My wife would have a nervous breakdown if I went to bed and left something cooking at home. Fortunately, I never had to tell her when I left pots simmering overnight at Foodies.

When the simmering is complete, you’re left with 4 pots filled to the brim with roasted bones, veggies and boiling hot liquid, and these babies weigh about 50 pounds apiece. All you have to do now is figure out how to fish out the solid material without stirring up a lot of sediment that will cloud your stock, and then strain the liquid through multiple china caps. Don’t forget, you will need some kind of container to hold approximately 40 quarts of hot liquid.

The next thing to think about is how to cool your stock to a safe temperature. Veal stock is like a Petri dish; it is the perfect growing medium for all manner of bacteria. That means you only have a few hours to safely cool 40 quarts of boiling hot liquid below 40 degrees. Any ideas on how to do that at home? Keep in mind that we’re talking about enough thermal mass here to melt everything in your freezer before it reaches a safe temperature.

While it is not a necessary step, I usually reduce my stock by half before I store it. Even after 18 hours of cooking, the unreduced stock doesn’t really have much in the way of flavor. Since I use it to make demi-glace anyway, it’s easier to go ahead get some of the reduction process out of the way. By doing this now, I have less liquid to cool, and less to store. After rinsing two of my pots thoroughly to remove any sediment, I return my 40 quarts of liquid to the stove and reduce it down to about 20 quarts. The end product of this process is what I have in my freezer now.

The final step in the process is to make my demi-glace. I’m not using Escoffier’s technique of combining veal stock with Espagnole sauce. I am simply creating a hyper concentrated blend of veal stock, red wine and tomato paste. There are no starch thickeners required since the gelatin in the stock will serve that purpose. You can do it all in one pan, but I prefer to reduce the stock and wine separately and combine them at the end.

For 1 quart of veal stock, I use about half a bottle of red wine and a couple tablespoons of tomato paste. Add the tomato paste to the stock and simmer until it is the consistency of molasses. One quart will produce about half a cup. Reduce the wine until it resembles cough syrup; this will only produce a couple of tablespoons. Add the two reductions together and simmer for a few minutes. The sauce is now complete, and it only took about 30 hours.

I hope this gives you a better idea of why I am so excited about my new treasure.