Beef Bone Broth

The Cook House

BONE BROTH

- Greetings from the Cook House on Big Mamou Farms. Today we walk through the preparation of one of nature’s healthiest foods. BONE BROTH or ‘stock’ is a wonderful foundation for literally thousands of different dishes and a veritable culinary weapon in the hands of those in the know.

First, we start with 100% GRASS-FED bones from cows that roam freely on certified ORGANIC land. In our case, cattle graze atop one of the highest points in the county, ensuring they are never exposed to run-off that might include pesticides, herbicides or toxic heavy-metals. Why? Because the animal’s life-long exposure to everything good or bad is concentrated in their bones and tissue. Think about that next time you reach for that can of soup from the store. You can do better.

We use a variety of different bones depending upon whether we are making a simple broth, a complex stock or a sensual demi-glace that will ruin your appetite for lesser sauces forever more. The bone pictured to the right would have made a wonderful braised cross-cut shank on its own but it will also make a rich and beautiful stock. I insist on marrow bones when making my stocks and broths. Mother-nature blessed marrow bones with scores of nutrients and a taste that can only be described as the very essence of life. Along with the marrow bones I always include a knuckle or joint with as much connective tissue as possible. The connective tissue creates a gelatinous stock that will impart a desirable mouth-feel to your soup or consommé while providing a super-sized shot of nutrients for beautiful hair, skin and teeth. Incidentally, some anthropologists attribute the development of our unusually large brains to our ancestor’s skill in finding and consuming bone marrow. No matter how beautiful, we can all use bigger brains.

The bones are roasted at 500 degrees for just a few minutes and then we turn the heat down to 350 for about an hour and a half with roughly-chopped organic carrots, organic onions and organic celery or kale stalks. Occasionally we insert a fresh garlic clove in the marrow to allow the pair to roast together. After the roasting process is complete, the onions and carrots should be caramelized and any meat in the roasting pan should be a beautiful burgundy or brown color. At this point we transfer everything to a large heavy-bottomed stock pot and then cover the bones with ice-cold water, skim the fat and proteins from the top and place it on the stove.

Meanwhile, we deglaze by placing the roasting pan on top of the stove with water. Some prefer to deglaze with red wine. The most important part of the deglazing process is to reheat the roasting pan with enough liquid to scrape the brown morsels from the bottom of the pan and return the entire contents to the stock.

Next, we bring the stock up to temperature. If making a broth for a base we bring the temperature to a slow boil. If for a clear soup or stock we will bring the temperature up just below a boil. When the stock is up to temperature we add, bay, thyme, rosemary and other spices such as black peppercorns and allspice depending upon the stock and its intended use.

This process will take approximately 2-3 days around-the-clock or 48-72 hours. Demi-glace will usually take an extra day. It’s critical to watch the stock closely as the temperature will change in step with the change in volume due to evaporation.

I do not salt or pepper at this point in the process because I want to encourage the stock to develop the true essence of beef stock beforehand. Later, when I do add salt, it will be unprocessed Real Salt, Himalayan or Sea Salt and the quantity will be scant. I’m after the essence of beef and bone and nothing more and nothing less. What you do with the stock when it’s done is your business.

Degreasing is the next step and is vitally important if we expect to produce a stock that tastes fantastic and has a velvety smooth but clean mouth feel. And by doing so, we are removing the vast majority of saturated fat while leaving behind essential life-giving minerals such as magnesium, calcium selenium and too many trace minerals to mention.

To degrease, we remove the bones from the broth and discard. Second, we will strain the entire contents through a fine sieve into a thin metal enamel coated holding pot to cool as quickly as possible. We immediately place the contents into a blast freezer for two hours and then transfer to a refrigerator for 8-10 hours. This process will force the fat to rise to the top and congeal into a solid mass leaving a clear and clean liquid beneath. To perform the final degrease, we remove the solidified fat from the top and strain the remaining contents a second time through a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth that has been folded to form a double-layer.

Finally we ladle our stock into one-quart containers, seal, label and immediately transfer the batch to the blast freezer. This particular batch happened to yield 16 quarts, roughly half the size of the stockpot used for the first two days of simmering.

Notice how the light hits the stock in both the one-quart containers and the large stainless bowl in the picture to the right? A poorly made, thin batch of stock that does not reflect light will impart a mouth feel reminiscent of chalk water; dead and un-lively, it will also be lacking in taste. This is just one yardstick that I use to measure myself for it speaks to how well that I attended to the process of making the stock. The viscosity and reflective quality of the stock will never lie to you.

Healthy! Many leading nutrition professionals believe that bone broth may be nature’s most perfect source of calcium, magnesium, selenium and a vast array of trace minerals required by our bodies for optimal health. Our Cook House bone broth and stock in particular will contain more than 60 trace minerals in addition to the macro nutrients. Athlete’s, particularly endurance athletes lose large amounts of minerals while training. Replacing minerals and trace minerals synthetically with pills and tablets while eating large amounts of empty calories devoid of mother-nature’s minerals can leave you in a depleted state with an immune system that is vulnerable to a wide array of diseases.

In a recent article about the health benefits of bone-broth Dr. David Jonkers of Exodus Health Center states, “Other valuable nutrients include collagen, gelatin, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, glycosamino glycans, proline, glycine, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and potassium. These all help with the development of healthy joints, bones, ligaments and tendons as well as hair and skin. These nutrients are considered beauty foods because they help the body with proper structural alignment and beautiful skin and hair”. These are but a few of the many health reasons to make bone broth and stock part of your daily diet.

A rigorous search aimed at the benefits of bone broth will reveal a massive amount of information and testimonials. The recent groundswell of interest in bone marrow and popularity of bone broth including chicken broth is due in part to the recent interest in the Paleo-diet. As for me, thousands of Doctors, French Chefs, our Ancestors and Mom can’t be too far wrong.

Thanks for your interest and for reading about one of the methods that we follow to make bone-broth and stock. There are certainly hundreds of different ways to make stocks and perhaps no correct or ‘right-way’ since food tastes always come down to a matter of personal preference and personal choice. From my perspective however there is only one or perhaps two ‘right’ paths to follow on the journey to seek the ‘perfect stock’. Like most good things in life, there are simply no short-cuts.

Next, I will present a few ideas to incorporate bone broths into your daily routine to save time while creating great tasting and healthy dishes. Once again, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed learning how we make stock at the Cook House on the Big Mamou. - JG