I've never made stock before.
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I've never made stock before. Every time I watch cookery shows, they talk about cooking bones or whatever and making stock. I just buy the stuff in cubes.
Does anyone not named Nigella or Bourdain actually make their own stock? Doesn't boiling stuff for hours waste electricity or whatever?
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@davidnjoku in our family, but I think it's quite common in Italy, we don't usually use bones to make stock, we tend to boil meat for one meal and then use the water it has been boiled into as stock for the next meal.
you're supposed to use a slightly different technique whether your main aim is the meat or the stock, but it's not as much of a difference as that between stock made this way and that from cubes.
there will be a difference between the different cuts used in these cases, but one isn't necessarily intrinsically better than the other, just more suited to different dishes.
and the boiled meat isn't necessarily something bland, it could be just a bit of boiled chicken for somebody who isn't feeling very well, but it could also be a full bollito misto with different cuts of (fatty) meat served with sauces for a festive meal.
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@davidnjoku oh, and the long boiling of stuff is something that tends to happen in winter, when yes, you are using a bit of electricity or gas¹, but then you're using a bit less of the same to heat the house, so it's not a big deal.
and people who still have a wood fired stove for heating often just use those, with basically no extra fuel needed.
¹ but not that much, since it's usually done at a low boil, ideally in closed pots that tend to conserve heat, so that it only needs lots of energy to heat up at the beginning, and then a trickle during the rest of the day
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@valhalla That's what we do in Nigerian households; we boil meat and use the water as stock.
Is there much difference in taste between that and the long-boiled stock?
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@davidnjoku I'm not 100% sure, but afaik it's in the range of difference you get from boiling different cuts of meat
pretty different from what one gets from cubes, however
