My broth needs some body!

[katie1341]

I always used to strain my stock through cheesecloth, but a few weeks ago I was making fish stock and didn’t have any cheesecloth. I used a coffee fiter instead, and I had the most beautiful, clear stock! I’ve made fish stock again since and also a batch of chicken stock, and I’ve used coffee filters both times with beautiful results. I’m not going to use cheesecloth anymore!

[UltraVires]

@aruvqan

There are health issues with things like onion skins. IIRC from the guy I apprenticed with as a chef there are something like 300 fungus types that can grow inside the layers of onion skins and something like 30 or 40 of them can be fairly toxic even after cooking. Yup, that blackish powdery stuff is a fungus, and apparently the reddish powdery stuff is too … and I particularly dont care to kill off myself or guests=)

As to veggie skins, if you wouldnt eat them in the first place, why are you using them at all? I admit i will save up the celery leaves from chopping celery, and leftover bits of chopped onion that are surplus to the amount I actually need at the time but those would have been eaten if the recipe needed eithrr the leaves or the excess onion. Heck, much of the time the celery leaves are what I nosh on while I am cooking.

Yes, but the stock is being boiled for several hours. Enough to kill any bacteria which may or may not be in there.

And while I wouldn’t eat veggie skins, or chicken bones, or fish heads, or anything of the like, the slow boil process extracts the flavor from these which makes a beautiful, hearty, homemade stock which is all sterilized through the boiling process.

As a previous poster, I have search several recipes online, including Emeril LaGasse who agrees with me on this…