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Beef Soup Stock
Wipe 2 pounds of shin of beef with a damp cloth. Cut the meat quite fine. Put bones, marrow and meat in a kettle, add 2 quarts of cold water and let soak for one hour. Cover, place over a slow fire and when it reaches the simmering point keep at the same temperature for four hours. Add 6 cloves, 6 peppercorns, a small blade of mace, a bunch of sweet herbs, I small onion, 1/4 of a cupful each of chopped carrot and turnip, a sprig of parsley and 2 teaspoonfuls of salt. Simmer one hour longer, strain and set away. Next day remove fat from the top and it is ready for use.
A classic long-simmered brown-less stock: the meat goes in raw and unbrowned, so the result is pale, clean and gelatinous rather than roasted-dark. A few notes on translating it to a modern range.
- Shin of beefSold today as beef shank, foreshank or osso buco cross-cuts. Ask for it bone-in with the marrow intact; the collagen in the shin is what gives the finished stock its body. Two pounds to two quarts of water is a lean ratio and yields a light stock, not a concentrated demi-glace.
- The cold soakThe hour in cold water is not idleness. It was held to draw soluble protein and flavour out of the meat before the heat sets it, and it is why the recipe specifies cold water rather than hot.
- Simmering point means barely movingThis is the hinge. Keep the surface at 180-190F, with only occasional bubbles breaking. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat and suspended protein into the liquid and you will get cloudy, greasy stock that no amount of straining will clear.
- "A slow fire"On gas or electric this is the lowest setting that will hold a shiver. Some cooks hold it in a 200-225F oven or in a slow cooker on low; note that the recipe itself calls for the pot to be covered.
- Blade of maceMace is the lacy aril around the nutmeg seed; a "blade" is one dried piece, roughly a quarter teaspoon ground. Ground mace or a small grating of nutmeg substitutes acceptably.
- Sweet herbsPeriod shorthand for the mild kitchen herbs -- thyme, marjoram, parsley stems, a bay leaf -- tied in a bundle. It does not mean anything sugared. Tie them with string or the strainer will do the work later.
- Late vegetables and spiceAdding the aromatics only for the final hour is deliberate and worth keeping. Carrot, turnip and onion can go muddy over a five-hour simmer; one hour is enough to flavour the pot.
- SaltTwo teaspoons in two quarts is light seasoning, appropriate for a stock that will be reduced or seasoned again in a finished soup. Leave it there rather than salting to taste now.
- Chilling and the fat capCool the strained stock quickly -- an ice bath or a shallow pan -- then refrigerate; the fat lifts off in a solid disc the next morning. Use within about four days or freeze.
- YieldExpect about 1 1/2 quarts after five hours of evaporation and straining, enough to base four to six servings of soup.
Beef stock made from shin is a standard economical foundation of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cookery: the shin is one of the toughest and cheapest cuts on the animal, full of connective tissue that is useless to a roast and invaluable to a pot. The method resembles the French bouillon as it was taught in Anglo-American cooking schools of the period, where clarity was the mark of a well-made stock and boiling was treated as a fault. The instruction to soak in cold water reflects a widely repeated nineteenth-century belief, often traced to the chemist Justus von Liebig, that cold water extracts the nourishing "juices" of meat while hot water seals them in. The chemistry as Liebig framed it does not hold up, but the practice survives because it does in fact produce a cleaner, better-flavoured stock.