A bit of stock making over the last few days.

A bit of stock making over the last few days. Made three in total, one fish/dashi and two chicken.

Fish was just a left over sea bream after filleting. I roasted the remains in the air fryer for 8mins or so, apparently this helps reduce the fishiness. Next day, covered with just over a litre of water, and added a few pieces of konbu (Japanese kelp). Bring up to 80-85C and hold for 10 Min, remove the konbu and add some katuobishi (Japanese dried smoked tuna) and simmer for half an hour or so. This is basically the dashi method with a slightly longer boil.

Chicken was a mix of a few bones from my freezer, a kg of carcasses from the local butcher, and 2kg of wings. All cheap cuts, so this is very affordable. I paid £2 for the carcasses.

To make the first light stock (tori chintan), cover with boiling water (about 4 litres), bring to boil, skimming off the grey foam. When that’s gone and replaced with white foam, leave it. I pressure cooked for about 1hr, which is the equivalent of 3hrs or so normal simmering. After this first cook, I strained and removed the meat from the wings. Bit fiddly but some extra protein.

Second pass (tori paitan) uses the already cooked bones. These were pressure cooked with about half as much water for another 90 mins or so (3-4hrs regular simmering). The bones fall apart after this much time, so you can either hand blend or crush with a potato masher. The resulting stock is quite concentrated and fatty as you can see from the cover photo.

The stock freezes very easily and I now have a freezer full of the stuff for use in Western soups and ramen.