COOKING STOCKS

The preparation of stocks has been simplified in many ways since the days of Escoffier (who was a French Chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods). Although this does not means that it demands less care or skill. Few chef today bother to tie vegetables for a stock into a bundle. They're going to be strained out anyway. The number and variety of ingredients is usually not as great as it once was. Nor is it common to cook stocks for as many hours as were once thought necessary. All these details are taken up one by one. A stock may be defined as a clear, thin (that is unthickened) liquid flavored by soluble substance extracted from meat, poultry, and fish and their bones and from vegetables. Our objective in preparing stocks is to select the proper ingredients and then to extract the flavors we want. In other words, to combine the correct ingredients with the correct procedure.