Brown Stock

Roasted veal or beef bones, simmered long — the base for Espagnole

Category
Basics
Cuisine
French
Serves
About 4 quarts
Time
8 hours
From
Phil Price

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The foundation under every brown sauce on this site. Espagnole alone wants three quarts of it, so make the full amount and freeze what you do not use.

Two things separate a good brown stock from a poor one: roasting the bones until they are genuinely dark, and never letting the pot boil. A boiling stock emulsifies its own fat and turns cloudy, and it will not clear again.

Ingredients

  • 6 pounds veal or beef bones, preferably with some knuckle and marrow
  • 2 onions, quartered
  • 2 carrots, in large pieces
  • 2 celery stalks, in large pieces
  • 3 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1 cup dry red wine
  • 6 quarts cold water
  • 1 head of garlic, halved crosswise
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 6 sprigs thyme
  • 10 parsley stems
  • 10 black peppercorns

Instructions

  1. Heat the oven to 450°F. Spread the bones in a single layer in a roasting pan and roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, turning once, until deeply browned. Pale bones give a pale, weak stock.
  2. Add the onions, carrots and celery and roast for 20 minutes more.
  3. Brush the bones and vegetables with the tomato paste and roast for a final 10 minutes, until it darkens.
  4. Transfer everything to a large stockpot. Set the roasting pan over two burners, add the red wine, and scrape up every browned scrap. Pour this into the pot.
  5. Add the cold water — cold, so the proteins release slowly and clarify rather than seizing. Bring very slowly to a bare simmer, which should take the better part of an hour.
  6. Skim the grey foam as it rises, several times in the first 30 minutes.
  7. Add the garlic, bay leaf, thyme, parsley stems and peppercorns. Simmer — never boil, just an occasional lazy bubble — for 6 to 8 hours, topping up with water to keep the bones covered.
  8. Strain through a fine sieve lined with muslin. Do not press the solids; pressing pushes fine particles through and clouds the stock.
  9. Cool quickly, then refrigerate. Lift off the set fat the next day.

Notes

  • Freezes 6 months. Freeze some in an ice cube tray for pan sauces.
  • Good stock sets to a jelly when cold. If yours stays liquid, you needed more knuckle and joint — that is where the gelatin is.
  • Reduce it by three quarters for Glace de Viande.
  • See also: Espagnole, Demi-Glace, White Stock.