Meat Stock

I use the term meat stock because most recipes can benefit from a generic stock that is neither chicken or beef but a combination of the two.

Most store-bought chicken stock is richer than store-bough beef stock. It makes sense because chicken is inexpensive so they can afford to use more real ingredients. Beef stock is likely made from fewer bones and meat.

Meat stock is bones, meat, carrots, onions and celery (mirepoix) covered in a neutral (olive) oil and roasted until dark and cooked with water for 6 to 8 hours to extract all the rich bone broth.

If you want to make the meat stock more beefy, you can add some tomato paste to the stock. You can also add some beef bullion cubes before using in a recipe.

I went to the store on a Sunday and all they had were a few marrow bones (about 1 lb.). In addition to these, I bought 2 flats of chicken legs, 2 lbs of tenderized steak (for chicken fried stead) from the must-sell section, a large package of mushrooms, 2 leeks (I only used the greens), 1 package of carrots, and 1 package of celery. I added 4 60z cans of tomato paste. It would have been just as good with 2 cans. I forgot the onions but this batch because it was going into French onion soup anyway so it might have been too sweet with the onions added. I used the pressure cooker method, below.

You can speed this process up by:

  • Chopping ingredients into 1.5″ chunks to expose more surface area and expedite the cooking.
  • Using a shallow tray to roast the stock. This exposes more surface area to the heat.
  • Using a large pressure cooker to reduce the cooking time to 2 hours.
  • Allow steam to escape naturally.

INgredientS:

  • 5 – 6 lbs of beef and chicken bones
  • 2 – 3 lbs of hamburger
  • 4 lbs of onions (chopped coarsly)
  • 1 lb celery (washed chopped coarsly)
  • 1 lbs of carrots (washed but not peeled)
  • 1 large leek (leaves only)
  • 1 lb of musrooms (chopped coarsly)
  • 1 cup of olive oil
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 Tablespoon of dried thyme
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 1 small can of tomato paste (if you want the stock to be more beefy)

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
  2. Prepare vegetables
  3. Cover meat and vegetables with olive oil
  4. Add the meat, vegetables and all the other ingredients in to a shallow roasting pan.
  5. Roast in a shallow pan for 45 minutes to 1 hour until browned.
  6. Place in a pressure cooker and cover with water.
  7. Pressure cook on low temp for 2 or 3 hours
  8. Strain in a chinois sieve.
  9. Remove the fats.
  10. Use or freeze.
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