Soup 102: Other Types of Stock

Alright, so you have already gotten chicken stock down to a science. What do you do when you want to make French Onion Soup, or Mushroom Barley Soup? Well, following the recipe and using chicken stock will work, but will not taste like you would expect. 

Changing a couple stock ingredients will completely enhance and change the flavor, get still retain all the richness.

It's as simple as this: For pork and beef stocks, simply exchange the whole chicken for pork and beef. With turkey or duck, same thing, and you only have to put in half of the bird.

For beef stock, the cut of meat you use depends on if you want any pieces of meat in the soup (like in a beef barley soup), or if you just want the beef flavor (like French Onion--which is sans pieces of meat). 

If you're making a soup where the actual meat isn't important, use the bones from leftover beef, shortrib bones, or a cheap roast with the bone in. It'll have to cook a lot longer than the chicken stock to absorb the flavor, so don't rush it.

If you want pieces of meat in your soup, use whole shortribs. They're very tender and can be broken up with your fork so the meat won't get tough. (Warning: Short ribs can be expensive. If you go to an "off the beaten path" grocery store, the price will probably be lower. In my area there are a number of hispanic food markets that have very affordable short ribs.)

Also, use 1 beef bouillon cube and about a cup of frozen chicken broth to enhance the flavor.

For pork stock, same thing. The best thing to use is a leftover ham bone. Around Easter, my family always goes crazy with cooking because we have ham for Easter dinner, and then use the leftovers for breakfast meat, and the bones for soup. It's a good time to be staying at Jamie's house. (Unless you're a vegatarian...then that would just suck. Don't worry I have a vegetarian blog coming)

For lamb stock, use lamb shanks. I also advise you put leeks in the broth with the rest of the stock veggies, it just adds so much depth to the flavor. You can actually use leeks in any of the stock recipes. Just be advised, it has an onion-like flavor, and it can sometimes overwhelm a more subtle flavor like chicken.

The only exception is seafood and veggie broths. I'll come back to that later.

Stay tuned for the next couple blogs where these stocks will all be transformed into creative and classic soups!