Giant pot. In my house that always means good food. Usually soup or chili or some sort of belly-warming home-cooked dish. Here is Chef Mark with probably the biggest pot I have ever seen. This was stock day.
We began to talk about stocks. The different kinds of stocks, the lights, darks, what they are used for. There is stock in a lot more dishes than I originally thought, I'll tell you that. But almost all stocks start with a mirepoix. Sounds fancy, but it's actually really simple. A trio of vegetables, traditionally onion, carrot, and celery, thrown into a pot and sweated/sautéed so that all the wonderful flavors and aromatics can be captured. What else is put in this giant pot is up to you, depending on what kind of stock you want. Other things are determinant as well, like how the mirepoix is cooked or how long, the heat, the seasonings, the liquid. A lot of stock is made by adding the bones of an animal. Chicken, veal, fish, etc. Chef had some veal bones, which he added to his stock:
We began to talk about stocks. The different kinds of stocks, the lights, darks, what they are used for. There is stock in a lot more dishes than I originally thought, I'll tell you that. But almost all stocks start with a mirepoix. Sounds fancy, but it's actually really simple. A trio of vegetables, traditionally onion, carrot, and celery, thrown into a pot and sweated/sautéed so that all the wonderful flavors and aromatics can be captured. What else is put in this giant pot is up to you, depending on what kind of stock you want. Other things are determinant as well, like how the mirepoix is cooked or how long, the heat, the seasonings, the liquid. A lot of stock is made by adding the bones of an animal. Chicken, veal, fish, etc. Chef had some veal bones, which he added to his stock:
Pretty huh? These bad boys are adding all kinds of flavor. Chef Mark made stock for a velouté, which is a sauce made from, in this case, veal stock. Hence the veal bones. But while this was at the front of our Hotel and Restaurant Management School Kitchen, smelling lovely of course, we made vegetable stock.
Here is that mirepoix I was talking about (pronounced meer-a-pwa - sorry that was my best attempt). Onions, carrots, and celery. We began to prepare them to go into the stock pot, and as we did this the most important thing to remember was that all the pieces must be cut the same. Similar knife cuts. Why? Because if the carrots, the onion, and the celery are all the same size, they will all cook evenly and contribute equally to the stock. Although, it is important to also note that the ratio is two parts onion to one part each of carrot and celery. So anyways, I got out my chewing gum (to those of you that didn't know, chewing gum while cutting onions will keep you from crying, who wants to cry in class right?) and began to chop.
Isn't it beautiful? I just love the colors. Anyways, once all the pieces were in the pot, we began to sweat the vegetables. This being because we were assigned to make a light stock. Sweating the vegetables accomplishes the extraction of the flavor without developing that brown color needed for a dark stock. Once the vegetables had been properly sweated, or the onions achieve a more transparent clarity, we added water. Just enough to decently cover over the vegetables, and then threw in our Sachet d'Épices. This is the bouquet of spices: parsley, thyme, bay leaf, and cracked peppercorns. This is to add flavor and aroma to the stock. We then simmered our stock for 30 minutes, and drained out all the vegetables and aromatics, so to leave only the liquid for use.
Here is a picture of all the groups in my class displaying their stocks, some better than others and obviously a range of darks and lights. We went down the line and tasted every stock. It is easily observed that some are stronger than others, or tangier than others, but a more detailed analysis can reveal differences with seasoning technique and the amount of time the vegetables were cooked. Overall, I've decided it was most interesting to see how many different outcomes you can end up with with just a few of the same ingredients.