White stock

A couple of days ago I used one of the small sauces from class (a Hungarian sauce, made from Suprême sauce) to make a very simple dinner dish. From the glace de viande project last week I had some pork rib meat that needed to be used. So I cut it to bite size and browned it in a pan, drained the fat, added the Hungarian sauce, and served it over basmati rice. 20 minutes total time and it was good. This suggests that it would be very useful to have some good, rich stock and primary sauces on hand all the time.

Therefore, today’s project is white stock. Sometime recently Chef mentioned in passing that chicken feet make great stock. The only place I’d seen chicken feet as food before was at dim sum restaurants, so I went to a nearby Asian market that carries fresh meats. Sure enough, right inside the door is a case with chicken feet, duck feet, duck wings, pig hearts, honeycomb tripe, and several different kinds of innards that I will probably never use, even though I am generally pretty enthusiastic about offal. I bought 2 pounds of chicken feet and 2 pounds of duck wings. Right now they’re simmering with mirepoix and sachet. I haven’t fully decided what to do with the resulting stock yet. Options are to keep some or all as stock, but this takes a lot of room; reduce the stock and save in that form, which is more space-efficient; turn some of it into a velouté, which can become many other sauces in short order; clarify it into a consommé and reduce to glace de voulaille; or some combination of these. I think I’ll decide after seeing how much stock I get and how flavorful it is. I may even make a remouillage (second stock) from the feet and wings to get maximum use from them.