Liquid Beef

Cafe Society
1

OK, so I’m hungry and there’s a few recipe threads floating around so I’m posting this little musing.

I love liquid beef in all it’s forms. My feelings on this subject are so strong as to border on creepy. If it weren’t for Bacon, liquid beef would have a shrine in my home.

You may ask, what do you mean, liquid beef?

Well, I’ll tell you. Beef is a beautiful thing. Steaks, burgers, roasts, and a hundred other delicious things. However, for all their greatness, the holy grail of beefiness lies in the pure concentrated essense of beef. The finest steak is greatly improved by a pool of Au Jus or Demi-glace. The best roast only becomes the best roast by swimming in a wonderous sea of beef gravy. The heartiest of the homestyle food, a truly rich wonderous beef stew or soup is made into the wonderfulness that can sustain the soul only by being built upon the finest of beef stocks.

Liquid beef, I love it.

However, I come to you all for aid. I cannot successfully create liquid beef at home. I have tried, my steaks, roasts and burgers are divine, but the essense, the crack-cocaine of beef foods, the gravies and stocks always come up short.

I’m asking, from you fine people, for your salvation. Please guide me in how to generate the all powerful tool that is homeade beef stock. Also, how should I fully appreciate this bounty once it’s been given life? All gravies, soups, stews and roasts will be hearalded with much reverance. Please guide me.

2

aren’t most stocks made by simmering bones with a few aromatics (carrots, celery, whathaveyou), then straining and cooking again to reduction?

(never really been into making homemade stock myself, although i’ve been known to save the leftover liquid from cooking smoked pork shoulder to use as a base for bean or split pea soup.)

3

Yes, but as I understand it there’s a bit of nuance to it. The types of bones can be important, and you generally are best served roasting them first. Also, the seasonings and liquids used make a difference. Mine always comes out watery.

4

BOVRIL!

5

Patience is the key.

Rather than reprint a recipe I’ll offer a good link to one. Or, if you’d rather not use veal, try this recipe for brown stock.

Or you could compromise between the two and use a mixture of beef and veal bones. I prefer the mouthfeel and taste of a veal stock, but I’m not always able to find an economical source of veal bones.

Also, make sure you keep the stock at a simmer, uncovered after the initial boil. There shouldn’t be more than a bubble every other second rising to the top of the stock. For a brown stock, you really need to let it simmer for at least 6 hours, I find, preferably more like 8-12.

6

Yeah? I got your liquid beef right here, baby.

7

See This page for an excellent introduction to stocks.

The key to a good stock is patience, roast the bones slowly in a low oven for at least an hour, simmer for a day and then reduce for 2 hours until you reach a thich, syrupy glaze.

8

Well, see, there’s stock and there’s broth. Two kinds of liquid beef. For stock, roasting bones, using veal bones for extra stickiness, et al. is just fine. But for a good broth you need a few pounds of bones AND some meat, a soup shank or two is perfect. Use the regular aromatics, cook at barely a simmer (a full boil will emulse the proteins and fat with the broth and give it a greasy mouthfeel and a cloudy look), and skim often. Then make this:

Portuguese Kale Soup

beef broth
waxy potatoes, peeled and cubed
chopped onion and garlic
some kale, blanched and chopped
some linguisa, blanched to get rid of some of the grease and sliced
some meat from aforementioned soup shank
salt and pepper and two bay leaves

Stew the onion, garlic and bay in a little olive oil. Do not brown. Add rest of ingredients and simmer for 30-45 minutes. Resist tempation to eat right away and cool it off and put it in the fridge. Eat the next day. Blow on nails and buff them on shirt.

If you like the intense flavor and mouthfeel of demi-glace but can’t find the veal bones or don’t want to fuss, make* glace de viande*. You need a big pot for this one. This is a lot of work, but it’s front-loaded. You can enjoy the fruits of a couple days labor for months and months.

10#of good marrow bones, don’t let them foist any joints on you.
regular aromatics

Roast the bones nice and dark. Take your time, turn them occasionally, don’t let them burn. Put bones into big ass stockpot. Deglaze roasting pan with water and add to pot. Use whole onions, carrots, just a little celery, a garlic head sliced in half, bay and parsley and peppercorns. Use a little salt but be very careful, you are reducing the hell out of this. Cover bones and aromatics with water.

Bring to bare simmer and keep it there for 6 hours or so. When water level gets below bones, top it off. Skim like an elected official. Make sure the bones are empty and falling apart before you stop. Carefully remove broth, strain really well, through cheesecloth preferably.

The hard part is done. Now you very carefully reduce this, switching to smaller and smaller pots as the level decreases. Make sure the pots are clean, and skim skim skim. This will be done over a few days. Eventually, you will have between a quart and a half gallon of the beef equivalent of maple syrup. Put it in a clean container. When it cools, it will be the texture of rubber. One teaspoon of this elixir will enrich a pan sauce like you wouldn’t believe. It will last forever. If it gets covered in white mold, rinse the mold off. Seriously. You have the fixing for 100 intense sauces or more.

Don’t thank me, just get out the pot and go for it.