Martha Stewart's 9-Recipe Special: Soups, Stews, and Stocks!

[Music] what do you get when you combine meat with wine and vegetables and put everything in one pot it's a mouth-watering stew today i'm sharing my favorite one-pot meals beginning with a hearty beef stew followed with a rustic french classic coco van finally the technique for creating a delectable veal stew bursting with spring vegetables [Music] a stew is prepared generally with an inexpensive tougher cut of meat like beef chuck chicken legs and veal shoulder so what you need to make a really good stew is a heavy-duty pot with a tight-fitting lid today we're going to begin with beef stew using chuck we're also going to be doing a coco van which uses the dark meat of the chicken chicken legs and thighs and veal so let's proceed we're going to do the beef stew first so a stew is generally prepared with small cuts of meat small cubes with the addition of vegetables that are cooked in enough liquid to generously cover the entire thing now this is slab bacon and this is what we are going to render to start browning the beautiful piece of chuck i have in front of me cut the bacon into half inch cubes and this goes right into your pan and start rendering the fat this is a fatty slab bacon so there we have our bacon rendering now this beautiful piece of chalk cut this into nice squares so while the bacon is melting season with salt and pepper use kosher salt for this you want to season generously a little bit of pepper so we'll save the lardon these will be added back into your stew [Music] and now just put your salted peppered meat in the fat you do not want to crowd the pan and don't try to move them for a minute or two as it's browning you can be cutting up your wonderful mushrooms you can use white button mushrooms you could use shiitakes but a very nice bunch of mushrooms two ounces of mushrooms and some yellow onions cut up one medium large onion peeled and cut into squares and four cloves of peeled finely minced garlic now adjust your heat while you're browning the meat let's take a look see that wonderful caramelized color it gets so you want to do each side six sides to a cube now meats won't brown at a low temperature way which is why it's very important to sear the meat on the stove top first if you don't do this you will not have that nice dark rich stew that we are looking for the meat looks very good i will put the meat in the bowl with the rest of it see how nicely colored this meat is that is exactly the color you want there's a little excess fat and i'm going to pour it right into a reserve bowl and now all those nice brown bits that are on the bottom of the pan add some beef stock one cup preferably homemade if you have it and this is a great wooden spoon has a flat bottom and just a few strokes releases all that stuff from the bottom of the pans try to find one of these if you can very good spoon to have okay so now this liquid goes right over the meat and look at the pan nothing in there it's almost clean so to this on low heat add a couple tablespoons of olive oil i like to add the onions first cook until translucent that takes about three minutes now you can add also four cloves of garlic finely minced if you don't like garlic you can emit the garlic in this stew and now you can add your mushrooms cleaned and cut in half stems removed and cook this for oh just about two minutes just until they start to soften so there the mushrooms are soft the onions have a nice color and they are nicely translucent and it's time to thicken the uh the stew and we do this by adding two tablespoons of flour all-purpose flour sprinkle it over your onions and mushrooms and stir that around you must cook that flour to make it palatable so we're cooking it over low medium heat and for added flavor a tablespoon of dijon mustard this adds just a little bit more flavor and it smells very good and now you see that the bottom of the pan has again accumulated some brown bits the flour has made everything a little bit sticky we're going to add two cups of beef stock and stir this around now here goes the meat boy does that look good and now red wine two cups and now add a few sprigs of thyme and two bay leaves submerge them in the liquid now bring that to a boil reduce to a simmer cover and you will cook it for approximately one and a half hours uh skimming every now and then just taking off any excess fat so oh yes now look how much reduction has taken place and the beef is beautiful the mushrooms are tender now is time to add one pound of fingerling potatoes or yukon gold cut in half these have to cook for another 25 minutes so this is at the end of an hour and a half where the meat is very tender you're adding the potatoes now make sure we submerge those in the gravy really beautiful and about 12 ounces or so of cipollini onions these have been blanched and peeled you can also use pearl onions red or white cover again and in approximately 25 minutes the potatoes will be done check after about 20 just to make sure well here's the stew it looks and it is ready to serve look at the color the meat is not falling apart and yet it is totally fork tender so beautiful i think it's very nice oh stir in the lardon so now i like serving it in a heated bowl like this with some noodles this small bowl will be welcomed by anyone you bring to your home look how pretty a little bit of carrot a little bit of vinegary finely grated horseradish and a little bit of chopped dill now that is beef too at its best [Music] coco van is a classic french dish which simply means to cook chicken and wine coke is a chicken an old tough rooster and ova means in the wine but today i'm using organic chicken legs and thighs first thing that you have to do if you're going to make a good coco van is to marinate the chicken in red wine two cups of red wine which is approximately half a bottle overnight in the refrigerator and cover with plastic wrap refrigerate 12 hours or even a little bit longer and then you're ready to start your coco vent i'm rendering the fat from eight ounces of slab bacon which we've cut into small cubes and it's rendering very nicely and we're using acid the red wine is an acid and it is also because it's an acid it's a tenderizer so the chicken i've started to drain this is what it looks like after 12 hours in red wine it has turned a deep kind of purpley color no surprise having been submerged in red wine save the wine that's going to be added to the stew and the drier your chicken is before browning the browner your chicken's going to get now we need a lot of garlic eight cloves of garlic and i thought i'd show you just a cute trick for peeling an entire head of garlic just put the whole head of garlic in a bowl you have to have two of the same size bowl for this put the other bowl right on the top like this and shake [Music] something good is happening i smell a lot of garlic oh and look what's in the bowl one perfectly peeled clove two three four this is the fastest most efficient way of peeling garlic i have ever found so here we have all our garlic nicely peel fun right try it give it to you give it to your kids to do they will love this method okay i'm going to remove the largo just put on a piece of paper toweling to drain these will get reincorporated into the stew into the cocoa van at the end season as you did the beef with salt and pepper very nice i'll do all the drumsticks first and then we have the thighs next let it cook a little bit before you try to turn it just like pan searing you want to get the brownness happening before you try to turn it and tear the skin or tear the meat always start with the skin side down and if you find that it is splattering just use your spatter guard and so here we have gorgeously browned chicken and now right into the hot pan uh start sauteing one medium onion chopped and this will be the sauce for your beautiful cocoa van as soon as this starts cooking you'll add your eight cloves of garlic that have been finely sliced now as the onions and garlic cook i'm releasing from the bottom all that brown stuff that's called the foam f-o-n-d in french and speaking french the other thing that's very french here is my mise-en-place put in place all the things that i need for the stew so now the onions have turned translucent the garlic is cooking add 10 white pearl onions blanched and peeled they go right in and then a half a pound of cremini mushrooms or white mushrooms button mushrooms the stem trimmed but still intact and so now add your mushrooms and so now we're going to add tomato paste just one tablespoon of tomato paste this has a little subtle flavor but also a little bit of color to our cocoa van and some flour three tablespoons of flour this is our thickening agent it will make sure that the sauce is not too runny cook this for two minutes just to cook the starch in the flour and now two tablespoons of the very best cognac we're making a french dish we might as well add french ingredients this will help glaze the foam in the bottom of the pan and add again yet another beautiful subtle flavor so nice okay and now return to the pot all this rendered bacon and the lovely chicken pieces all of this fits very nicely in this beautiful enameled cast iron pot and i'm putting the chicken all in one layer on top of the vegetables add a couple sprigs of thyme and some bay leaves and now your red wine and it's a good idea if this is the marinating red wine to strain this over the mix there might be a little bit of chicken fat or something in there from the chicken and if you want a really earthy taste you can add at this point the chicken liver an ounce or two of chicken liver this will disappear into the sauce bring this to a simmer which it is doing right now cover and transfer to a 325 degree preheated oven and cook until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender 45 minutes to an hour very easy looks absolutely beautiful now i think there's a little bit of fat on the top which can be skimmed off by just sliding a spoon along the surface and it's not so much from the chicken as it is from the lordon and if you chill this all the fat will come to the surface and you can just scrape it off and then reheat that's enough and now we have some mashed potato you can make a nice mound of mashed potato on a plate and give everyone one thigh and one drumstick the color is superb of course we want some of this beautiful gravy and some of the mushrooms and pearl onions sprinkle with some parsley hearty delicious this is called a white stew because the meat is never browned the stock is thickened first by a roux and then by a second thickener called a liaison which in this case is eggs and cream and the eggs and the cream make the sauce exceptionally rich and delicious so the first thing to do is to have your meat two pounds of boneless veal shoulder cut into one and a half inch squares we're going to make a bouquet garni in a cheese cloth so one carrot one small onion and you can just roughly slice this onion this two is going into our bouquet garni this is going to cook right in with the veal and the other aromatics to make a flavorful veal stew here's our parsley like four or five sprigs of parsley some thyme one clove of garlic smashed and two bay leaves and you can break the baileys if you like and then just make a little pouch you can tie this without string and you can just do this in a knot and make sure you use cotton cheesecloth so here's your little pouch ready to go and bring one quarter of a cup of white wine to a boil and we're going to add the veal straight in to the white wine and this is typically like a navarana of lamb when the veal is young the vegetables are tender and young and this is what a spring stew is all about stir the meat into the white wine and add six cups of water cold water and to this one teaspoon of salt and oh i forgot to put the peppercorns into the bouquet garni i'll just throw a quarter of a teaspoon in you can pick those out later but they are an essential ingredient in the aromatics so stir the meat a little bit you're going to bring this to a boil reduce to a simmer and once it starts to simmer add your big bouquet garni and cook for one hour skimming with a spoon like this to take the scum off the surface okay our veal is just coming to a simmer with a spoon make room in the center for your bouquet garni and the aromatics will continue flavoring the meat for the entire hour in which it's going to cook uncovered gently at a simmer so here is our veal the liquid has reduced to oh my gosh a fraction of what it was this is after one hour now add to the pot three large artichoke hearts so cut this into six pieces depending on the size of your artichoke card it's going to take anywhere from let's say 20 to 25 minutes to get these tender it's been cooking for an additional 25 minutes with the artichoke hearts now add your green peas one pound it doesn't look like a pound but it is of fresh green peas if you can't find fresh you could use the baby frozen okay so that's three minutes you want to now strain your liquid remove the bouquet garni so gently remove the peas the meat the artichoke hearts to a bowl and you can strain the rest right through a sieve and we're ready to do our roux four tablespoons of butter and we're going to add a quarter of a cup of flour and you just have to cook it for about one minute [Music] add your stock and this is a veloute now as this comes to a simmer it will thicken a little bit more and you'll be ready to create the liaison of egg yolk and cream oh so this is smooth and it is thickening so turn the heat way down you can break your egg yolk right into the bowl save the white for something else meringues and other things and add one quarter of a cup of heavy cream i'm going to add a little bit of the veloute now to the egg and cream this is called tempering you want to add just a little bit at a time so that you do not curdle the egg yolk and now you can add this warm mixture to the pot stir it in we have our meat our fava beans oh i can put those right here those are going to be added this is one pound and now just add your veal right back to the pot at this point i like to stir everything with a rubber spatula because i don't want to break anything and one last lovely little addition is the juice of one lemon spectacular well there you have it your blanket devoe spring veal stew and i like to serve this in a spectacular bowl like this now you could serve this over a beautiful risotto or that could be on the side some freshly chopped parsley and freshly chopped dill so i hope you've enjoyed this lesson on stewing and we'll try making one of these hearty satisfying meals for dinner tonight or for this weekend for your friends and family thanks very much for watching this episode of martha's cooking school i'll see you next lesson every culture in the world has its own soup there's borscht from russia cozuela from chile buyabes from france and miso soup from japan but closer to home i'll teach you how to stir up a pot of everyone's favorite chicken soup then learn how to transform an assortment of garden vegetables into a hearty minestrone soup finally an impressive yet simple recipe for a brilliantly colored spinach cream soup soups on [Music] so let's start with classic chicken soup i know that your mom had her version and your next door neighbor had her version well this is our version and the final result is really delicious and useful so start with one chicken a nice three and a half to four pound chicken organically grown if possible cut into eight pieces and use a pot that is just large enough for all the ingredients so i'm putting all the chicken in the larger pieces towards the bottom and chicken soup is different from chicken stock in that we are using chicken with lots of meat on it the meat is what gives more flavor if we were using just assorted bones and backs and necks you would get your stock but you wouldn't get the rich rich flavor of this chicken soup so there we have the chicken in the water and start with cold water too and next we have our vegetables one carrot and these vegetables are the vegetables for the flavoring and they really won't be the vegetables that you will eat these will be diminished in flavor by the time you finish cooking the soup and you'll want to put fresh vegetables in at the last minute into the clear stock so this is one parsnip my mother always put parsnip in hers heart snips add a subtle sweetness to the chicken soup very very flavorful i love it a lot one yellow onion cut up into chunks two ribs of celery cut into chunks some fresh thyme some fresh parsley and about a quarter of a teaspoon of peppercorns and one or two bay leaves and where we could use just a tiny bit more water in here we want to keep the chicken covered by one inch during the entire cooking process and we can also add at this time one teaspoon of kosher salt bring this to a boil reduce to a simmer skim and cook for about 16 to 18 minutes a thermometer should read about 160 degrees in the breasts and 165 degrees in the legs and the thighs and you'll have perfectly cooked chicken now i've diligently been skimming during the last 18 minutes skimming is very important since the impurities from the chicken will cause the broth to become cloudy and you want to get rid of that the vegetables have become very soft and they've imparted their flavor to the broth and that's why these are only soup vegetables we're going to add garnish vegetables at the end so it looks good it looks very clear and because this has been cooking for almost 18 minutes i am going to remove the pieces of chicken just take them out and put them on a baking sheet like this because they have to cool so that you can then take the meat off the bones and the skin off the meat what goes back is just nice large chunks of chicken so now it's time to pull off the meat we want the chicken to cool a little bit let's just slide the skin off this goes into the discard bowl and if you're like i am and have lots and lots of animals you can use a lot of the discard for the animals grind it up or cut it up into small pieces for the dogs they love snacks and you can put the bones right back into the broth if some of the chicken seems to be a little underdone don't worry because it's going to get cooked a little bit longer in the soup when you add the garnish vegetables back into the broth that's a nice piece of breast meat now there's not much meat on those little wings but wings are my favorite part of the chicken so there so now turn this back on and simmer for an additional hour so now strain the soup it's cooked for an hour longer and you want to get out all the bones and all the cooked vegetables and you should be left with approximately six cups of broth and i like to press a little bit to get all the liquid out and the reason i'm not pouring the whole thing into the strainer is heaven forbid if you miss and this is all discard look at the great color it's a beautiful color and now with less liquid and you can feel free to pour and we have just about six cups of lovely broth now this should stand the fat will rise to the surface if there's any more and straining out all these aromatics will certainly result in a clearer cleaner broth now chicken broth like this can be made up to three days in advance if refrigerated separately like this with the broth in one container the chicken tightly covered in another and then you can proceed with your soup right before you're ready to serve it so i'm almost finished a little piece of the wishbone finished shredding the meat i'm chunking the meat not really shredding it i think it's so pretty when you get big nice chunks of chicken like that in your soup and now we have a little fat on the broth i'm going to take a spoon and just take this fat off the top leaving us with a very nice clear broth so see we got a lot of fat off the top that will be discarded now this can go right back into your stockpot and i pour off leaving that little bit of solids in the bottom i don't want to put that in because that is a little bit of cloudiness that can be discarded and your vegetables two carrots cut up into quarter inch pieces two ribs of celery cut up one medium to small parsnip cut up and these will be your garnish vegetables cook for anywhere from five to eight minutes until the vegetables are fork tender so now you can add all the chicken which is quite a lot or you could reserve a little bit for chicken salad for tomorrow just warm until the chicken is heated through and ladle it out you could add some cooked rice to the soup at this point you could spoon it over rice any way you choose you will love what this tastes like and it is healthy and good for you enjoy one of everyone's favorite soups is minestrone and this is a classic minestrone it's a beloved italian soup that's hearty and healthy minestrous generally means bigness and this is big because it has so many ingredients and they can vary it includes lots of vegetables leafy greens and beans the foundation of flavor in a minestrone soup is something called a sofrito it's a common element in italian soup making and it consists of a trio of celery carrots and onion and we'll get to the sofrito but let's do the beans first because this is what you have to do the day before you make your soup you need three quarters of a cup of cannellini beans and they're really white italian kidney beans dried they're plump and they're creamy tender beans when they are reconstituted with moisture and they soak up lots of flavors in which they're cooked so cover this with water in order to cover like this and just let them sit out overnight 8 to 12 hours and they plump up to look like this look at the difference big difference they more than double in size and so now these are ready to cook strain these this water can be discarded and get this right into a deep pot with a half of an onion take the outer skin off the onion and you can cut this into just three or four chunks one bay leaf no salt salt tends to toughen the beans uh and eight cups of water if you're a vegetarian stop here but if you're not a vegetarian ask your butcher for the end of a prosciutto this has skin fat and a little bit of the prosciutto meat and cut this into two or three pieces and add this to your water so now bring this to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for approximately 30 to 45 minutes until the beans are to your taste al dente for some and well cooked for others now the beans have cooked they're tender even plumper than they were after the soaking they're even cracking a little bit to indicate the nice creamy interior i'm letting those cool a tiny bit while i start the sofrito a third of a cup of olive oil i remember my first introduction to sofrito was in kameori in the mountains and the lady of the house where i was staying made sofrito for almost everything her tomato sauce made from the fresh tomatoes in her garden it started with a sofrito everything she cooked started with a sofrito which is one stalk of celery cut up into very fine dice one onion cut up into very fine dice and one carrot this is the holy trinity of italy and if it had green pepper instead of carrot it would be the louisiana version of sofrito so stir this until everything becomes translucent this will take about 25 to 30 minutes and now we can strain the beans i have a strainer set over a measuring cup you're going to pick out the ham and the onion leaving the beans themselves so there let these cool a little bit beans are ready so after 25 minutes the sofrito looks like this it has a nice golden deep brown color and we add one medium leak green and white parts to this mix now some garlic three cloves of garlic and this should take about four minutes now add your carrots two carrots thinly sliced on the diagonal coat with that flavoring and the oil two ribs of celery again celery and carrots were in the sofrito but now you'll have visible pieces one large red potato zucchini one medium zucchini sliced thinly and quartered and lastly the string beans one quarter of a pound of beautiful fresh green beans smells very good okay so this is getting ready now your other ingredients one 28 ounce can of plum tomatoes the san marzanos are very excellent a quarter of a head of savoy cabbage that's the nice crinkly cabbage it's been chiffonaded finely this adds a very nice texture to your minestrone and then oh this is something i don't know if you've seen it in the grocery store it's cavallo nero which is the italian black kale very tasty and so good for you so full of iron and other fantastic vitamins and minerals so you need one bunch about five ounces of that and four cups of vegetable stock and about four cups of the bean cooking water and it's very nice to have all your ingredients ready before you really start doing this part of the soup okay we're going to add our tomatoes now the tomatoes you just crush with a spoon with your fingers and add the juice you hear the cooking stop raise the heat a little bit so now it's starting to look like minestrone and now the cabbage i love cabbage cooked in anything that must be my polish heritage very pretty and then the kale which i also love now this is a fantastic kale and now you can add also four cups of vegetable stock if you happen to have it and you should save rinds of parmesan cheese in your freezer so you can add that to the soup a chunk of prosciutto like a four ounce end and a bay leaf some red hot pepper flakes start with a quarter of a teaspoon you might find that you like more but a quarter of a teaspoon really adds a lot of flavor to the soup and four cups of the bean liquid so here we have six cups i will pour in four there a little bit of salt and a little bit of black pepper bring to a boil reduce to a simmer cover and cook for one hour so after one hour add your beans the cooked beans right into the soup these have to now cook for another 20 minutes and your minestrone will be ready to serve covered and we have one that's all done finely and let's show you what it looks like served put a nice big serving right there and then some of the broth crusty toasted italian bread a little spoon of homemade basil pesto right on top parmesan cheese let that cheese just melt into the hot soup and serve italian minestrone the peasant soup from all the ingredients in your pantry very delicious and now you know how to make it [Music] now i'd like to show you how to make a cream soup a spinach cream soup classic cream soups were traditionally based on bechamel which is essentially milk thickened by a roux but today you're just as likely to be served a cream soup that's based on a veloute which is made by thickening stock with a roux and to start with the roux five tablespoons of butter into a pot like this and now into the five tablespoons of butter first add one onion that's been finely chopped a yellow onion is good so cook this for about five minutes until translucent have four cups of chicken stock ready we're using a chicken stock if you are a vegetarian of course you can use a vegetable stock now while your onions are turning translucent blanch your spinach salted water boiling on high two pounds of washed spinach leaves and do a few leaves at a time and you just pretty much dunk them and remove them into a ice bath by doing this what you're really doing is getting the moisture out of the leaves believe it or not since you're putting it in moisture but look at the color and you're trying to preserve the color use one of these spiders it really makes the task very easy oh see now the onions are almost translucent almost time to add the flour and start cooking down the roux let's finish this spinach first this is not a long process it's very easy and notice why i put a strainer into the ice water that way i don't have any ice in my spinach smart so there and now get this also into your towel this process is used for getting the excess moisture out of a lot of things if you're making cabbage pierogi for example you would be steaming your cabbage and squeezing out the excess moisture so here we have our spinach two pounds have been reduced to this more insignificant amount but plenty for our veloute and now to proceed with the roux add a quarter of a cup plus one tablespoon of all-purpose flour stir that into the butter mixture cook this for one minute stirring constantly you're cooking the flour but we want the flour to enable the soup to thicken and that's what it's going to do and the onions are tender enough now so that they too can be pureed along with the spinach leaves to make that nice silky veloute that we're talking about and now we add four cups of homemade chicken stock of course you can use store bought now raise the heat stir and cook until it comes to a boil it looks very watery but this will thicken up and it should reach the consistency of heavy cream once it comes to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer so our veloute is done i just want to show you what it looks like let's see it looks like the consistency of heavy cream and it coats the back of a spoon a little hard to see because of the color but it is exactly the right consistency and now if you have a powerful blender you can use a blender or you could use a food processor put some spinach in a couple of scoops of the hot veloute and be very careful when you turn this on that the cover is on well and tight sounds like you're at the dentist beautiful and this goes right into a strainer look at the color and what a beautiful thing to serve to guests takes a little while to put it through the sieve but it is worth it to enrich it add a little bit of fat like heavy cream and cream soups are best served right after preparing especially when using green vegetables and if you don't serve it right away it will lose some of its vibrancy look how beautiful and this kind of soup warrants taking out your very best soup bowls now that is a phenomenal looking soup so beautiful and so elegant so if you'd like to garnish the spinach soup or any veloute soup making tiny little croutons like this is a very elegant way to finish off an elegant soup these are french bread i'm browning them very carefully and a little bit of olive oil you could use a little butter if you like and you can make these ahead of time oh see how pretty look at the color if you were doing a pea soup you would garnish with some fresh peas but just that on top that little crunchiness spinach soup at its very best learning how to make these classic soups is a valuable lesson for the home cook success lies and using the best ingredients and combining them well seasoning them correctly and cooking them just enough to bring out their elemental flavors thanks very much for watching this edition of martha's cooking school and i'll see you at the next lesson what do all of these mouth-watering dishes have in common they're all made with a flavorful stock so in today's lesson you'll learn the techniques for making rich full-bodied stocks we'll start with the basic chicken stock and for the days you're short on time i'll share my secret for cooking stock in a pressure cooker then i'll teach you how to roast the bones for brown beef stock so good you'll also discover what vegetables to use for creating an aromatic and tasty vegetable stock [Music] today's lesson is all about stocks a stock is simply water simmered with bones the meat left over on the bones adds flavor to the water while the bones and the connective tissue break down and add body to the liquid in the form of gelatin stalks are the foundation for soups and sauces they also add endless amounts of flavor when used as a substitute for water whenever you're cooking grains or braising meat here are some of the tools needed for making stock you'll need a stock pot water some chicken wings legs bits and pieces and a mirepoix of carrots celery and onion so we have about five pounds of chicken and the smaller the pieces of chicken connected to the bones the better i see the backs here have a little bit of fat i like to take off as much of the fat as possible prior to making the stock and you see all of this red stuff here this is parts of internal organs you want to remove all of that too and any bloody bits so pick this out and then wash the chicken very well now there are important rules to remember when making a stock a good stock starts with good ingredients your goal when making stock is to transfer all the flavor from those ingredients to the cooking liquid itself so let me wash this right into the stock pie and you see if you use butcher paper parchment paper clean up is at a minimum so you put your chicken in and water to cover bring this to a boil and as it comes to a boil you're going to see that some chicken fat arises and you want to skim that off using a strainer like this or a ladle like this these square ladles are phenomenal and have a container for the fat uh i'm going to cut up our mirepoix use twice as much onion as celery and carrot and these can be cut into quarters the onions two onions and two carrots and just cut these into chunks and don't forget leave the celery leaves on now bring the liquid to a boil and then immediately turn it down and keep everything submerged at all times the reason that we use taller pots for most stocks is that there's less surface to evaporate and always remember to simmer stock so that the impurities and the fat don't get emulsified back into the liquid as they would if the stock were boiling away so now skim this chicken fat off the top again you can choose your tool i use this this skimmer first because it takes very little moisture away it drips all through but the scum stays on the strainer and you keep doing this during cooking time you can see already that there is quite a bit of chicken fat accumulating on the top so no matter how much fat you removed there's still a lot under the skin of chicken and all of that will be taken away let's see and it's mostly fat after that first skimming add all your vegetables and we call these the aromatics and don't overload chicken stock with vegetables because you don't want to take away from that great rich chicken taste and some peppercorns one teaspoon of black peppercorns one dried bay leaf i always add two and i'm not adding any salt at this time the chicken stock recipe this one is an example of a white stock it's as simple as stock to make raw bones and aromatics covered with water gently simmered to yield a very pure clean flavored stock with a light color now for a really light stock cook this for one and a half to two hours for a more intensely flavored stock three to four hours i'm going to cook this one for about three hours today i want it to have a rich full flavor so look at the color of the stock and i am passing the stock by ladling it from the pan to a cheesecloth lined strainer and just gently do this get as much stock out of here as possible and what's happening is that a very pretty stock is accumulating in the bottom of the pan so what a simple procedure and you have the best chicken stock you've ever tasted so much better than opening a can now of course you're going to strain all of this into here ultimately but look at that beautiful stock now whatever you accumulate in the pan just let it cool to room temperature chill it and then we're going to skim off the fat so here we have chilled stock it's already become gelatinous and gelatin gives stock its body it's produced when that connective tissue in the meat breaks down during the simmering process and if prepared correctly your stock should gel when chilled now with the edge of a sharp spoon just scrape off the remaining schmaltz or chicken fat and discard but this is a pretty clear delicious looking stock and it is very jellied which makes me very very thrilled because it means we did our job right so this is what it looks like and you can just scoop this out and store in court containers or paint containers like that in your freezer you can use this stock immediately or store in the refrigerator for maybe up to three days if longer than that i would suggest putting it into your freezer what you're going to get between two and three quarts of ultra delicious homemade stock now make sure that you label your containers clearly with a date so on a rainy weekend that you just happen to be at home make yourself some stocks and get ready to do a lot more cooking with an emboldened liquid i'm just cutting up vegetables because i wanted to show you another way to cook chicken stock which is in the pressure cooker which cuts the time down by two-thirds at least and a pressure cooker like this with a top like that is a special cooking pot with an airtight lid which locks and it has a valve system to regulate internal pressure and because steam builds up inside the pressurized pot food cooks at a very high temperature reducing the cooking time that's why this method is quite ideal for making long cooking things like stocks we'll start with the chicken because it has to come up to a boil backs wing tips wings legs whatever small pieces of chicken better and this is again five pounds of chicken washed and it looks good cover with 10 cups of water because it's not going to cook as long and won't evaporate as opposed to the 16 cups of water that we cooked with in the stockpot method so bring this to a boil and you're going to skim off all the scum the vegetables cut into approximately one inch pieces [Applause] you want them to add as much flavor as possible while they're under pressure and the same bay leaf peppercorns very very similar so now pressure cookers reduce cooking time without destroying the food's nutritional value the steaming the pressure steaming draws gelatin out of the bones more quickly and that's what we really want we want a gelatinous stock as clear as possible and as flavorful as possible so the stock is just coming to a boil and of course remove any visible fat now add your vegetables we'll reduce the heat after we put the top on and the pressure comes up and your bay leaf don't forget and your peppercorns put the top on and wait for the pressure to come to high so now reduce the heat just enough to maintain high pressure and cook for 30 minutes so now the steam is almost down to release that further just push on this particular pressure cooker this releases the steam before you open it you really would like to release all the steam so just wait for that blue button to completely retract and then same procedure as with the stock pot stock pass the stock through a cheesecloth lined sieve into a large heat proof measuring cup or bowl or pot and let come to room temperature chill and de-fat so then you're going to freeze it or use it now because this stock was cooked in a short period of time it's going to be a much lighter color stock but it's going to have a actually deeper flavor because it was cooked under pressure and if you get a little impatient waiting for the pressure to decline as i have been waiting for it you can actually run the pot under cool water and it will reduce the pressure much much quicker there now we can just release oh smells so good and you'll end up with more stock than in the stockpot method there's very little evaporation so now just strain you can see the stock is a little bit lighter in color a little yellower and certainly extremely fragrant i want you to see what you're getting very beautiful light stock do not press on the solids you don't want to release any more of the fat than it's been released already but what a great stock and what a time saving device and as we proceed with the show making beef stock and vegetable stock you can of course use the pressure cooker for either of those to save time [Music] now i'd like to show you how to make a brown beef stock when making beef stock the meat the bones and the aromatics are roasted first to give a deeper flavor and darker color to the stock and what you do is in a big roasting pan like this put some unflavored oil sort of a safflower oil or a canola oil and strew four pounds of veal bones these come from the shank and some oxtail or neck bones these are lovely for a stock oxtail like that right into the fat add a little bit more oil and get this right into a 400 degree oven and roast turning once and stirring often for even browning for about 45 minutes so this goes right into the oven so the oxtails and the veal bones are nicely browned add two tablespoons of tomato paste this can be canned or out of a tube but get a good flavorful tomato paste and stir that around in the pan this will add some depth of color to your sauce and then add your vegetables your aromatics are a different thing in a stock like this we're not even peeling the onions it's really kind of great that you can just put the skins in there the celery washed of course two ribs of celery two carrots unpeeled but washed put into the pan two yellow onions and four cloves of garlic also they don't have to be peeled but i like to smash them a little bit for the pot and stir this around put that right back into the 400 degree oven and roast until the vegetables are browned and tender and the bones are deeply browned so that takes about 40 minutes longer so you can see the bones have gotten a beautiful color especially the oxtails and the vegetables are tender now here's where we are using a deep stockpot because we want as little evaporation as possible why we are cooking the stock so there's quite a bit of fat which i am going to pour off try not to pour off the brown bits that's going to add color to your stock and now on high heat one cup of red wine and we'll deglaze the pan now you can burn off the alcohol by boiling that red wine down by a third or a half smells so delicious and then pour all of this right into the stockpot now take this to the sink and fill so that everything is covered by at least two inches that's going to take at least six quarts of water and if you want and i do rinse my pan a little bit so that i'm sure i'm getting every bit of goodness into the stockpot so to better extract flavor and to preserve clarity begin cooking the stock with cold water don't add hot water to this use cold so now look at the color it is such a rich color already and now bring this to a boil reduce to a simmer and cook for approximately eight hours so notice i've reduced the heat so it's just barely simmering uh remember boiling a stock is going to make a cloudy stock so i'm taking off whatever impurities was on the top there's not much not yet and now is the time to add our aromatics a big bunch of parsley like this some fresh thyme two teaspoons of black peppercorns and a couple bay leaves submerge those into the stock and allow to simmer very slowly over low heat for approximately eight hours so uh make sure you start this in the morning or by noon time if you don't want to stay up all night because you're going to have to add a little bit more hot water if necessary to keep everything submerged so our stock is done now notice it's really cooked down quite substantially but everything has stayed submerged during the cooking time i'm just going to remove the big bones to a bowl and if you boil this down even more you will have a demi-gloss a very rich flavoring that you can add to stews and sauces i always like putting it through the cheesecloth because it really does take out all of the impurities and this is what it looks like when it's chilled there's quite a layer of this orangey fat on top oh look it's coming off all in one piece makes that an easy job this is going to be discarded of course and here's your gorgeous broth very rich very flavorful so good what a great stew or soup this would make beef stock made the old-fashioned ray in a stockpot [Music] more and more people are choosing not to eat meat so vegetable stock is a great alternative to chicken stock or beef stock and it's also a great option when braising vegetables or when making soup stews or risotto and it's very easy to make and can be very flavorful and you can pretty much add what you like to vegetable stock this is a simple basic vegetable stock that does not take long to make i'm heating three tablespoons of a nice light olive oil in this pan and i am going to brown half of a white onion you can use leeks you can use onion leeks add a very nice sweetness i find too a vegetable stock and we have two cloves of garlic and just we're not going to brown the vegetables too much just sort of get them kind of golden color so this goes right into the oil that'll start browning and getting a little translucent use mild tasting vegetables if you want a nice mild tasting rich broth onions celery mushrooms leeks avoid strong tasting vegetables like artichokes spinach cruciferous vegetables like cabbage or broccoli or cauliflower those strong flavors will really overpower a stock and it'll actually make what i call a stinky stock which you don't want and then two ribs of celery two nice carrots and just cut these up into small pieces remember it's the same as with meat stock the smaller the pieces of ingredients the more flavor will come out of those ingredients there's no need to peel the carrot and no need to actually take off the leaves if you don't want to they taste good now the yield on this will be about two quarts of stock so just until they start to brown and it'll take about 10 or 12 minutes then add your carrots and celery you can add some peppercorns and some bay leaf and i also have some very nice herbs fresh thyme fresh basil and fresh flat leaf parsley so when i add the carrots and the celery we have our mirepoix add black pepper about a quarter of a teaspoon and get these cooking a little bit scraps that you might otherwise compost or discarded may be added to your vegetable stock like the tops of leeks parsley stems the bad ends the woody ends of asparagus shiitake mushroom stems carrot peels ends from squashes you can freeze these scraps until you're ready to make stock before you add the water everything should be just lightly browned and a little bit tender about 10 minutes if you can get the vegetables on the verge of caramelization you can get a more intense flavor and a darker color if you want a very deep flavor you can add what my mother always added to her vegetable stock dried mushrooms those wonderful italian or chinese or polish dried mushrooms very very flavorful so now we can add water to cover i would say somewhere between eight to ten cups now you can raise the heat again now as opposed to meat stock or chicken stock if this does boil it's not going to get terribly cloudy compared to a meat stock there's not any of that fat to emulsify now i'm adding eight sprigs of flat leaf parsley eight sprigs of basil and some fresh thyme and this is one stock that you will season with salt and i would say about three quarters of a teaspoon to start so bring that to a boil reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for one hour so this is what it looks like after one hour the brief cooking time of vegetable stock ensures that flavors are extracted but not lost and so just as we strained our beef stock and our chicken stock you can strain this lovely vegetable stock i'm not even using cheesecloth because i don't think we have to so fragrant and now you can press on the vegetables because there's no fat to extract and just get as much liquid out as possible you have a very flavorful beautiful vegetable stock to make your risotto to make your vegetable soups now cool this to room temperature you can freeze it or use it within three days having homemade stock like these in your freezer means that soup can be made in minutes sauces and stews will take on new and complex richness and the extra flavor enables you to cut back on fats and salt now that i've shared my tips and techniques be sure to stock up with your favorites i'll see you for our next lesson on martha's cooking school

Channel: Martha Stewart

Views: 870,187

Keywords: martha, stewart, martha stewart, martha stewart living, recipe, recipes, how to, how to make, cooking, food, kitchen, winter, soup, soups, stew, stews, stock, stocks, beef stew, coq au vin, veal stew, chicken soup, minestrone soup, spinach cream soup, chicken stock, beef stock, vegetable stock, martha stewart recipes, cooking school, soup recipes, how to make soup, stew recipes, how to make stew, how to make chicken stock, chicken stock soup, dinner recipes, winter recipes

Id: kOsn2zNoy_I

Length: 72min 30sec (4350 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 28 2022