Friday, December 24, 2010

Clarity Is Worth The Effort!

Clarity Is Worth The Effort!

In the little town of Hobart, Indiana there was a Korean restaurant with authentic Korean food right in the middle of nowhere.  My family knew this family from one of my Uncles having spent time in Korea in the 50's.  The daughter of this family, So Young (I don't know the proper spelling of her name but that's how I remember it sounded), fell in love with a man from my Uncle's platoon and she married him and brought her parents over.  Too bad the man she married lived in such a small place but it seems like it's often those guys and gals from small places that end up in deserts and jungles (but that's someone else's blog).  So she worked as a waitress in my parent's Polish restaurant for a time until her family opened their own ethnic restaurant.  I was probably three years old the first time I had a clear soup.  I remember when I thought my mother knew how to cook everything.  She was actually the chef of my parent's Polish restaurant, Jenny's Cafe, when I was in the oven.  People ask me how I learned to make pierogi and I often say, "I don't know, I suppose it was osmosis."  And it's kind of true, I just made them one day.  Anyways, I asked my mother all the time if she could make this clear soup.  She said, "It takes too long."  I asked, "how long."  She said, "real long, you have to boil those bones for hours and hours."  My mother cooked from scratch.  We always had bones bumbling around in stock pots with carrots and all those other lovely aromatic vegetables and herbs and whole skinned animals hanging from the rafters in our barn or complex layers of porky smoke billowing from the seams of our smoker.  But for some reason she would not make this clear soup.  It was my favorite.  I also loved the bean sprouts at that restaurant.  I'd order just a bowl of bean sprouts.  I remember sitting on a booster seat at a table with the window at my back, the bright neon lights of that restaurant, the cafeteria feel of it and some of the most unique and flavorful food I had put in my mouth.  I just could not understand how that flavor came from what looked and felt like warm water.  Well it wasn't until years later that I had that soup again, not the same one but one just like it at a restaurant called House of Kobe (something like a Benihana).  I was fifteen I think and then that became my favorite place to go for birthdays cause it was too expensive for anything else.  But wow.  Even now that I can make my own clear soups I have to admit I still like the soup there even if I leave smelling like a clove of garlic fried in oil.
Today I can clarify my stocks, making them nice and clean, no particles whatsoever and I can also make them close to clear, just a little shy of what they'd look like if they were distilled.  I'll briefly walk you through removing all the little imperfections from your own stock and some other time I'll walk you through turing your stock nearly clear and then even I'll tell you how to turn corn tortillas into a clear liquid, how I make my "fish taco bubble tea."
I'm going to do veal but you can use beef bones, lamb bones, pork bones it just depends on the dish you will ultimately make.
5 lbs veal bones
7 carrots- peeled and chopped
3 onions-peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery-chopped... Or one bulb fennel
1 1/2 T peppercorns (I use a mix of green, black and pink)
3 T Kosher salt
2 fresh bay leaves
Sprigs of thyme, enough that if held in hand would be diameter of a quarter
1 can of tomato paste
3 cloves of garlic
2 T canola oil
A stock pot and cold water filled to cover elements about 4-6 inches
Note: for a darker stock you can roast the bones and veggies first
First sweat the veggies, about ten minutes, then add the bones, add the water, herbs, peppercorns, only 2 T salt, etc.  Bring to a boil then turn down heat to a very gentle boil or heavy simmer.  Now let it alone for 8 hours, just stir from the bottom every once in awhile, especially if your pot is thin because the bottom can scorch.  Once the eight hours are up, strain the stock, reserving the liquid in one container, let it cool and cover placing in the refrigerator.  Then toss the veggies (I like to snack on the carrots) and reserve the bones, placing back in the cleaned stock pot, cover bones again with cold water about six inches and do the same with just the bones for another eight hours.  Once this is done, strain.  Take out the first stock, skim impurities and fat from top, strain into a clean stock pot along with the second liquid.  This is when I add about 1 more T kosher salt, just enough to feel the salinity on my tongue and to heighten the veal and vegetable flavors.  I reduce this liquid for about two hours at a heavy simmer.  I turn it off, strain it again, let it cool, skim impurities and then I place it back into a stock pot with about 1 egg white per every cup of liquid.  At this point it usually turns out to be between 8 to 12 egg whites.  I let it come back up to a gentle boil and using a flat bottomed spatula occasionally sweep it around the sides and along the bottom of the pot to help the egg white float to the top.  What this egg white does is form a raft which brings up the tiny particles of meat, veggies, etc and catches all of the left over particles as the stock gently boils over and around it.  I let the raft do it's work for about an hour then I turn off the heat, let it settle and using a ladle carefully strain the liquid through a coffee filter into a container.  Once I've strained out the liquid I discard the egg whites and taste my stock for salt.  Here I generally need a bit more.  At this point you should have a beautiful stock free of any particles.  It should be pristine.  Here you can reduce it a touch more if you'd like something a bit more potent or you can reduce it even further to make a nice reduction that will act as a beautiful sauce just on it's own with any dark meat.  The reduction should be glossy and coat the back of a spoon.  I hope you have fun with this.  It is so worth the effort.  Try it for the Holidays and blow your loved ones' minds.

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