For years I struggled with chicken soup. Why couldn't I get it to taste rich, full,chicken-y? Recipe after recipe and countless calls to my mother did not completely solve the problem. My stock was good but it wasn't quite there. And then there was Julia. The mystery was solved on pages 106-109 in MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING. It turns out, it was no mystery at all. It was what my mother had been doing all along with turkey carcasses. It was what women have been doing for generations...before Swanson's Chick Broth was available in every grocery and 7-11 in America...before Campbell's concentrated the basis of every meal into a 10 3/4 oz can. We "quietly simmered" chicken bones and meat scraps over several hours in partially covered soup pots until we were left with deeply colored deliciousness. Deliciousness to which Swanson's and Campbell's could never begin to aspire.
Bone soup is "all the rage" in 2016. It's health benefits are extolled in every women's magazine on the newsstand making it feel like the concept of simmering meat bones is new. It's not new it's just GOOD and all you have to do to get it right, is follow Julia's directions and, perhaps, listen to your 84 year old mother.
TIPS from MTAOFC:
1. Never allow the liquid to boil; fat and scum incorporate themselves into the stock and will make it cloudy.
2. Cooking may be stopped at any time, and connoted later.
3. Never cover the kettle airtight unless its contents have cooled completely, to the stock will sour.
Works Cited
Child, Julia, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle. Mastering the Art of French Cooking. 40. anniversary ed. ed. New York: Knopf, 2001. Web.
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