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Stock for Sauces and Gravies
Place in a soup kettle all the fresh bones taken from your roasts and steaks, cooked or uncooked, bones of mutton, lamb, veal, beef or poultry; also, the trimmings of same if fresh, allowing one quart of cold water to every pound of bones and meat. Place the kettle over a moderate fire and bring slowly to boiling point, throw in a cup of cold water, skim, cover the kettle closely and simmer for four hours, then add one onion, one carrot, two bay leaves, one bunch pot-herbs and twelve cloves to every gallon of water used; simmer one hour longer. When done, strain through a fine sieve, and stand away to cool. When cold, take the grease from the surface and it is ready to use. All sauces must be stirred continually while on the fire, and seasoned carefully, so that each sauce may have its own individual flavor.
A standard nineteenth-century household stock: bones first, aromatics late, fat lifted off cold. The proportions are sound and translate directly.
- The ratioOne quart of cold water per pound of bones and meat is the whole formula. Four pounds of bones takes a gallon, which is what the aromatic quantities below are keyed to.
- Start cold, heat slowlyBringing bones up gradually from cold water draws out gelatin and pushes scum to the surface where it can be lifted. A hard boil at any point emulsifies fat into the liquid and turns the stock cloudy; hold it at a bare shiver.
- The cup of cold waterThrown in at the boil, it drops the temperature and makes the coagulated proteins rise and clump so they can be skimmed off in a sheet rather than chased around.
- Pot-herbsA bundle of parsley stems, thyme, a celery top and a leek if you have one; broadly the same idea as a bouquet garni.
- Twelve cloves is a lotThat quantity per gallon gives a distinctly spiced stock, in keeping with period taste. If you want a neutral base for later sauces, three or four is plenty.
- Late aromaticsOnion, carrot and herbs go in for the last hour only. Five hours of simmering would strip them of anything worth having and leave a flat, vegetal edge.
- "A moderate fire"On a modern burner this is medium-low to start, then the lowest setting that keeps an occasional bubble breaking the surface, roughly 185-195F.
- Cooling and keepingThe instruction to "stand away to cool" assumes a cold larder. Chill a large pot quickly in a sink of iced water before refrigerating, since stock held for hours in the danger zone spoils fast. Use it within three or four days refrigerated under its fat cap, or freeze it.
- YieldSome water is lost to evaporation over the five hours, though the recipe keeps the kettle closely covered, which limits it; expect rather less finished stock than water put in.
Stock of this kind was the quiet engine of the Victorian and Edwardian kitchen, a way of turning the bones and trimmings of every roast into the base of the week's sauces and soups. Made once, degreased and kept cold, it let later sauces be built quickly. The method is a domestic simplification of the French fond of professional kitchens, reduced to what a cook with one large kettle could manage. The final line asks that sauces be stirred continually and seasoned so each keeps its own flavor -- the stock itself is left deliberately neutral.