Tips and Advice - Canning and Preserving Food

Veal stock is used as a base in many dishes for its deep meaty flavor, often buried on a list of ingredients, along with things like raisin paste and mushroom stock. If you reduce the stock as shown below, then you will have intensely flavored syrup for adding a few tablespoons at a time to the underlying tremendous depth of flavor. I am all in favor of eating local, and healthy, and since the "eat local" movement has started many local farmers markets are back offering hormone free veal. Since it can be frozen into little ice cubes, I get to save and use this later, like "putting up" for later was meant to be.

You need a many veal bones as you can get which should be easy once you find the farmers market or butcher who carries fresh local veal.

• 3-5 pounds of veal bones
• 1 large onion
• 2 large carrots
• 1 center section of celery with leaves
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 cup of hearty red wine *
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste **
• 6 sprigs of fresh parsley ***
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 1 dried bay leaf, fresh

Notes:
*    This is a perfect way to use up the last of the wine in a bottle after a dinner party.
**   I use a cup of tomato sauce /thick ketchup that I have made and put up
***    All the herbs should be fresh grown, not dried kind, except the bay leaf, which should still be a new this year, green bay leave, not a yellow or brown dried out one.

 

Making the Veal Stock

1. Set the oven to 430F. Spread the veal bones on a large sheet pan(s), or roasting pan(s). Roast the bones until they are well browned (but not burnt), turning every 10 minutes or so, for about 40 minutes to an hour.
    
2. Chop the onion, carrots and heart of celery. Add to the stockpot. Once they are sitting in the pot and the next time to open the oven to turn the bones, drain off 3-4 tablespoons of the fat drippings from the roasting pans to the stock pot, turn the bones and return them to the oven. On very low heat, slowing sweet the vegetables in the drippings. About 20 minutes into it, add the hearty red wine. And soon it will be time to add the bones to the stockpot.
    
3. Another way to do this; is to wait for the bones to be done, move the bones to the stockpot, drain off the dripping, leaving 2-3 tablespoons, and roast the vegetables for 15 minutes. Then move the vegetables to the stockpot and add the wine to the roasting pan, and bring to a boil, scrapping the browned bits from the pan into the stockpot.
    
4. Add enough clear filtered water to cover the bones and vegetables by 2-3 inches, which depending on your stockpot could be 4-5 quarts. Bring to a boil on high heat and skim the foam. Reduce heat and let settle back to a low simmer. Smash the garlic, mince and add to the stockpot. Add the tomato paste and herbs of parsley, thyme, rosemary and bay leaf. Continue to simmer on very low for from 6-8-10-12 hours depending on when you set it. I often set it to simmer overnight and get up once in the middle of the night to add a little more water.
    
5. Next steps are to strain the stock through a sieve into a large bowl and then quickly cool. Once it has cooled, skim off any clear fat. This fat can be used in a dish as a flavoring agent used in frying something like diced ham and diced vegetables for a fried rice dish.
    
6. The stock is now ready for its next stage, whether reducing to a Veal Reduction or kept refrigerated and used within the next three days, or poured into the green ice-cube trays and frozen for later use with the next 3-4 month.

 

Veal Reduction

This makes about 1 cup of super concentrated yummy flavor. I use if at 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon at a time.

Take 2 quarts of Veal Stock, and bring to a boil on high heat in a thick bottomed medium sauce pan. Do not use a thin walled cheap aluminum pan. Boil rapidly for about a hour until the stock is reduced to a syrupy consistency. Make sure you take care to stir with a whisk often to make sure it does not scorch. Again, cool quickly and ether use within three days refrigerated or freeze into ice blocks and use within the next couple of months.