How to Eat Read Online Free

this thesis).
    An actual recipe for stock would be hard to give with a straight face; boiling remains to make stock is as far from being a precise art as you can get. Look at the recipes for broth and consommé (see pages 83–84 ) if you want something highfalutin’, but if you’re looking for what I call chicken stock (but which classically trained French chefs, who would use fresh meat and raw bones, boiled up specifically to make stock, would most definitely not), then follow my general instructions. At home, I would use the carcasses of 3 medium, cooked chickens.
    Break or cut the bones up roughly and put them in a big pot. Add a stalk of celery broken in two or a few lovage leaves, 1 or 2 carrots, depending on size, peeled and halved, 1 onion stuck with a clove, 5 peppercorns, a bouquet garni (see page xx ), some parsley stalks, and the white of a leek. Often I have more or less everything at hand without trying, except for that leek; in which case I just leave it out. (I sometimes add a couple of discs of veal shin if I want a deeper-toned broth of almost unctuous mellowness.) Cover with cold water, add 1 teaspoon of salt, and bring to the boil, skimming off the froth and scum that rises to the surface. Lower the heat and let the stock bubble very, very gently, uncovered, for about 3 hours. Allow to cool a little, then strain into a wide, large bowl or another pot. When cold, put in the fridge without decanting. I like to let it chill in the fridge so that I can remove any fat that rises to the surface, and the wider that surface is, the easier.
    When I’ve removed the fat, I taste the stock and consider whether I’d prefer it more strongly flavored. If so, I put it back in a pan on the burner and boil it down till I’ve got a smaller amount of rich, intensely flavored stock.
    I then store it in differing quantities in the freezer. On the whole, I find packages of ½ cup and 1 cup the most useful. For the smaller amount, I just ladle 8 tablespoons into a freezer bag or small tub with a lid; for the larger, I line a measuring cup with a freezer bag and pour it in till I’ve got, give or take, 1 cup (it’s difficult, because of the baggy lining, to judge with super-calibrated accuracy). I then close the bag and put the whole thing, cup and all, into the freezer. This is why I own so many plastic measuring cups. I am constantly forgetting about them once they’re buried in the freezer. But, in principle, what you should do is leave the stock till solid, then whisk away the cup, leaving the cup-shaped cylinder of frozen liquid, which you slot back into the freezer. You may need to run hot water over the cup for a minute in order to let the stock in its bag just slip out. This is a useful way to freeze any liquid. Although it’s a bore, it pays to measure accurately and to label clearly at the time of freezing. Later you can take out exactly the quantity you need.
    Poussins make wonderful, strong, easily jellied stock; it must be the amount of zip and gelatin in their poor young bones. So if ever you need to make a stock from scratch, with fresh meat, not cooked bones (in other words, the way you’re supposed to), and you can’t find a boiling fowl, then buy some poussins, about 4, cut each in half, use vegetables as above, cover with cold water, and proceed as normal.
    I do not disapprove of bouillon cubes or other commercial stocks if they’re good, not overly salty, and, of course, leave no chemical aftertaste.
    CELERY AND LOVAGE
    One of the most useful things an Italian friend once showed me was how important even half a stalk of celery is in providing basenote flavor not just to stocks but to tomato and meat sauces, to pies—in fact, to almost anything savory. The taste is not boorishly celerylike; it just provides an essential floor of flavor.
    In Italy, when you buy vegetables from the greengrocer, you can ask for a bunch of odori, which is a bunch of those herbs that breathe their essential scent into