>Beef Stock – The base for a perfect winter soup


>

My favorite winter food is a good hearty bowl of soup.  So many people I know love a good bowl of soup but say they just can’t get it to taste right or that it is just too much work.  It does take time to make a great bowl of soup but it does not take a lot of effort.
The foundation of a great soup is the stock.  I have already given you the recipe for my chicken stock, and now I am going to give you my beef stock recipe.  Tomorrow I will release the vegetable stock and then we will embark on a series of blogs on soup making.  With these three stocks you will be able to make a wide variety of flavorful soups that your family will love.
I will again reiterate that factory food soup bases and stocks don’t come close to homemade in flavor or nutrition.  The high levels of sodium and the level of processing require to provide the desired shelf life in my opinion results in a substandard product from both a taste and health standpoint.  Careful caramization of ingredients and slow simmering will build flavors that will not need to be overloaded with sodium.
This stock takes about 8 hours on the stove but can be left overnight or put it on the back burner and let it simmer away.  It can also be finished in a slow cooker when you are at work.  Don’t let 8 hours of sitting bother you because it only takes about 15 minutes of actual time to prepare.
Ingredients
2 pound beef soup bone (shank piece with meat and bone)
One onion Pealed and course chopped
1 Tbsp Grape seed Oil
3 carrots washed and course chopped
3 stalks celery washed and course chopped (remove bottom white part – bitter)
1 bulb of garlic cut in half loose peal removed
3 Tbsp Tomato Paste
1.5 cups Dry Red Wine
1 Tbsp Freeze dried Sage Leaves or 3 Fresh Leaves
6 sprigs of Fresh Thyme
6 pepper corns
Salt to taste – 1 to 3 tsp
Preheat the oven to 375.  Sprinkle salt and a few turns of fresh ground black pepper on all sides of the meat.  Place on a roasting rack in a pan for about 45 minutes until meat is browned.  Turn about half way through.  Be careful not to burn the meat or bone because it will add a bitter flavor to the stock.  You just want to get enough brown on to add flavor.
Rough chop all of the vegetables and heat the grape seed oil (preferred because of the high smoke point and neutral flavor) over medium high heat in a 6 liter stock pot.  Add the vegetables to the hot oil in the stock pot stir occasionally until the onions start to turn golden, be careful not to let anything too dark.  To quote Gordon Ramsey “If it’s brown it’s cooked if it’s black it’s …” (I’m not famous enough to get away with that.J) 
Once there is a light gold on the onions add the tomato paste and cook for another 5 minutes or so stirring frequently.  Deglaze with the red wine.  Add in the soup bone and fill the pot with water.  Add in the herbs and pepper corns.
Simmer on low heat. Do not bring to a rolling boil the odd bubble is not a problem but keep just below the boil covered for 8 hours.  If you see foam on the top skim it off, this contains fats and other impurities.  I usually do this two or three times during the process. 
After 8 hours salt the stalk to taste and then drain the stock into a bowl through a strainer.  (Don’t do like a buddy of mine as stain it in the sink and be left with the veg and bone :s).  You can save the meat off the bone and discard the rest.  Cool the stock.  At this point you can skim the fat off the top and strain through cheese cloth if you desire a very clean stock. 
This flavor rich stock will be an excellent base for your soups or stews.  I will be posting several recipes using this stock in the near future.

Thanks to:

WippleTree CSA for providing the onion
Active Live Farm for providing the garlic
Noggins Farm Market for providing the carrots
Getaway Farm for providing the soup bone
Jost Vineyards for providing the wine
River View Herbs for providing the Thyme and Sage

And of course the Halifax Seaport Farm Market for giving me a great place to pick up my local products.

Fresh Crusty Sandwich Rolls – Mexican Inspired


I often hear people talk about how much they love bread and how bad it is for them.  I find this strange because bread has been a staple of working families for centuries and has been considered the foundation of a healthy western diet.  However the nature of bread has changed to increase production, reduce price and increase shelf life bread.  Homemade bread did not need preservatives, and does not have to be processed to the point where the ‘dough’ can be passed through pipes.  Homemade bread and factory bread are different products all together.

I was looking for a sandwich roll, to me the perfect sandwich roll is crusty on the outside and very light on the inside.  In my search I came across a recipe for a Mexican Teleras.  I have made this recipe a few times and have made some alterations.  I have cut the batch down to make it fit into a standard Kitchen Aid Mixer, traded lard for butter, used whole white flour and cut back on the salt.
No while white flour was not a typo, it is a produce produced by Speerville Flour Mill http://www.speervilleflourmill.ca/  in Speerville New Brunswick.  This Atlantic Canadian (thus local for me) mill produces a nice variety of high quality flours.  They describe their whole white flour as follows:
” Whole White Flour: Exclusive to Speerville Mill! This Whole White Flour is a little darker in
colour than commercial unbleached fl ours because it is 85% of the original wheat kernel
and still contains wheat germ so is also more nutritious. This is a good fl our to use for any
baking and cooking.
This flour is an ideal replacement for bleached white flour in most baking applications.  It makes your baked goods more nutritious and filling without making it heavy.  Please check out Speerville products if you are in an area lucky enough to carry them.
If you don’t think you can bake your own bread this is a great recipe to try.  I believe that using some useful kitchen toys we can cook a lot of food that we have been told by marketers are to burdensome to bother with.  This is a great example.  I have scaled this recipe to use only a KitchenAid Mixer and though the total time is close to three hours, your hands on time is about only a half hour of that total, including cleanup.
Crusty Sandwich Rolls
Ingredients
2 ¼ tsp of dry active yeast
1.5 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1.5 Cups warm water (110 degrees)
4 ½  Cups Whole White Flour (you can use White Flour)
3 Tbsp butter at room temperature
1 Egg White for an egg wash
Step 1: Proof the Yeast
Place the warm water into the steel bowl of your mixer.  Sprinkle the sugar and yeast over the surface and leave it for about 5 to 10 minutes until it turns foamy.  This activates the yeast which is what will make your bread rise and be light and fluffy.  If it does not proof your yeast is dead.  Buy new yeast and start again.
Step 2: Make the Sponge
This is a step that is not as common now as it used to be and it is what will lead to a light texture on these rolls.  Add 2 cups of flour to the bowl and attaching the whisk attachment to your mixer whisk the mixture for about 2 minutes until it is smooth and elastic.  Remove and rinse the whisk attachment (I’m a guy so I tried the let the mixture dry on your whisk method .. sucks for clean up)  Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and sit in a warm dry place for about 45 minutes.  The sponge will be bubbly and double in size.  It might take as long as an hour in a cool house.
Step 3: Make the Dough
Cut the butter into little cubes and add into the sponge, sprinkle in salt and ¼ cup of flour.  Add the paddle attachment to your mixer and on low speed (ladies will get this, guys you don’t want a flour cloud, trust me low speed, I did the high speed experiment for all of us).  As the flour gets incorporated add the flour ¼ cup at a time until the dough wraps around the paddle and stops sticking to the side of the bowl.  At this point change over to the dough hook.
With the dough hook attachment in place turn on the mixer on low speed and add another ¼ cup of flour.  When this flour is incorporate turn up the speed one notch and allow it to kneed for 4 to 5 min.  The dough will be shiny and elastic.  Again rinse the dough hook and paddle.
Remove the dough from the hook and place in the mixing bowl, spray with no stick spray and flip the dough coating in oil.  Cover and let sit for about an hour until doubled in size.
Step 4:  Shape the Rolls
Gently deflate the dough, it is called punching down but this is not an aggressive process.  Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and divide into about a dozen 3 oz pieces.  A kitchen scale will help you get similar sized rolls.  Press each piece of dough into a flat 3 inch square and roll up corner to corner.  This will form a nice cylindrical roll.  Don’t worry if the shape is not perfect, I suck at this part and the rolls still taste good.
Place on a baking sheet if possible on a silicon mat (I love these things), best use for silicon yet!!   Place a little slice along the top of each roll and allow to rise for about an hour, again until doubled in size.   (Preheat the oven to 425 degrees)
Step 5: Bake
Before placing in the oven brush the top of each roll with beaten egg whites to help develop the crust.  Place into a preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. (If you have 2 trays in switch bottom to top and top to bottom after 10 min.)  After 10 minutes brush again with egg wash, reduce the temp to 350 (the crust has developed) and bake for another 10 to 15 min.
When removed from the oven place the rolls on a wire cooling rack right away.  You don’t want the bottom of the rolls to get soft by cooling on the baking sheet.
Step 6:  Enjoy

Tomato Sauce – The Mother of Mother Sauces


There are 5 Mother Sauces in French cooking and I will at some point in time hit all of them but for today I am focusing on my favorite.  A bold rich tomato sauce can be the base for so many great dishes and will be referenced in future recipes.  This is my basic Red Wine Tomato Sauce with Basil which I used as the foundation to most of my Italian cooking.

Ingredients:
1.5 TBSP Good Virgin Olive Oil (It is a waste to heat really good Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
1 White Onion chopped
2 Medium Carrots chopped
2 Ribs Celery chopped
3 Cloves Garlic chopped fine
2 Tbsp Tomato Paste
1 Cup Dry Red Wine
2 Cans of Roma Tomatoes Drained of Liquid (Use fresh only if in season 8 Cups Chopped)
4 Turns fresh ground black pepper
Salt to Taste
2 tsp sugar
1 Hand Full Fresh Basil Chopped
¼ Cup Fresh Parmigiano – Reggiano Grated Fine
When cooking it is best to have all of your chopping (prep work) done in advance.  This way nothing burns or over cooks while you are chopping the next ingredient, a mistake I have made more than I like to admitJ.
In a large stock pot or Dutch oven heat the olive oil over medium heat until it is hot but not smoking.  You can tell it is hot by the way it thins out and easily moves around the bottom of the pot.  If you are not sure throw a little onion in, if it sizzles it is good to go.
Put the onion, carrot, celery and about a half a tsp of salt into the pot and stirring occasionally cook until the onion starts to turn a little golden.  Add in the garlic and cook another 5 minutes or until you see a touch of golden in the garlic, do not let it get brown it will turn bitter.  You will see some light brown on the bottom of the pan, rejoice, that is flavor.  Add in the tomato paste and cook another 2 to 3 minutes, you will see it release a little oil.
Now it is time to get all of the flavor you developed into the sauce.  Add in the 1 cup of red wine and allow it to simmer until it reduces buy half.  Now add the Roma Tomatoes and bring to a slight boil and reduce to a simmer over low heat (it should bubble very slightly and there should be steam).  Let simmer for about a half hour stirring occasionally and using an immersion blender blend all of the ingredients into a smooth sauce.  If you don’t have an immersion blender (buy one it is my favorite toy) you can use a potato masher, it will be a little chunky or you can transfer the sauce a little at a time to a blender.  Use care with the blender keep the lid loose so the steam can come out and pulse.  Put the lid on tight and the steam can cause the top to pop off, messy and ouch!
Once you have the sauce to the consistency you like let it simmer until it reduces by about ¼ over low heat with the cover off.  This will concentrate the flavor.  When it reaches the thickness that you and you family like it is time to flavor it.
Add the Parmigiano – Reggiano and chopped basil.  Stir and let simmer for about 5 min, you don’t need long.  Taste, salt, taste again.  If you want more cheese or basil add away.  If you like a little spice add some crushed red chili.  More pepper required, add away.  This is where your inner chef comes out, taste and make it the way you like it.  If you find it is too acidic, add a ¼ tsp of baking soda.  It will bubble away, taste again.  Make it your own special creation.  Ingredients are never the same so this step is a little different each time to get the flavor just right.
This sauce is great on pasta, as a base for a meat sauce, lasagna, or what ever you need tomato sauce for.  I will reference this sauce in future recipes.  Enjoy !!!

Chicken Stock – The secret to great soups


There is nothing more comforting than a hot bowl of chicken soup on a cold fall day.  Rich broth with chicken, veggies and either rice or noodles.  The biggest secret in making a good soup is the stock.  You can buy stock but it is not very good.  For companies who package food shelf life is the most important consideration.  Now that I am over 40 I am more concerned with my shelf life than the shelf life of the food I eat.  Even using the reduced sodium stock you are getting half your allotment of sodium in a bowl of soup and it is really not very flavorful.

Making chicken stock is simple and cheap.  It does take time but just the time the pot is sitting on the stove.  Make lots, it is great in soups, stews, gravy and for cooking rice and freezes well.
Ingredients
Bones and skin from 1 or 2 chickens
2 carrots
3 ribs celery
1 onion
5 black pepper corns
1 tsp salt
Thyme (2 to 3 tsp dry) or a bunch of fresh thyme tied with string
Simple Approach:
Clean and rough chop all of the vegetables (peal the onions).  Put vegetables, chicken bones and thyme and salt and pepper into the pot.  Fill the pot with water (about 8 to 10 cups).  Over medium heat bring the stock to a simmer and reduce the heat to maintain the simmer.  Do not boil the stock, it draws the gelatin out of the chicken and muddies the flavor.  Simmer for 3 to 5 hours.  Strain the stock well and then put back in the pot and boil the stock down to concentrate flavors; I usually reduce it by about 20%.  After the stock is reduced add salt to taste.  Adding salt before you reduce will result in salty soup.
For Richer Stock Flavor:
Place chopped vegetables and chicken into a roasting pan sprinkle with salt and olive oil.  Roast in a hot oven 400 degrees for about 15 min until slightly browned.  Deglaze the roasting pan with white wine and empty the roasting pan into your stock pot.  From there add water as above and continue with the recipe.
This stock gives you a good base for your cooking.  Play with the recipe, add additional herbs, sometimes I like to crush a knob of ginger and add it with the veggies.  Some good soup recipes to follow.  Updates will be announced from my Twitter @CheckRaiseNS.

Sausage You Want to See Made


There are 2 things you never want to see made, laws and sausages.  Having been around enough politicians I have often thought this was unfair to sausage.  Stores bought sausage are loaded with salt and fat and can be way to use things no one wants to eat.  However homemade sausage is a great taste treat.

Sausage is simply flavored ground pork.  If you have a good source of ground pork you can enjoy sausage with your mind at ease.  Being from Nova Scotia I seek out Tony’s Meats ground pork.  http://www.tonys-meats.com/ I have also found a farm from which I can buy my pork but that is another blog for another day.
Being the weekend I would like to share my breakfast sausage recipe with you.  I enjoy these sausage patties with eggs, pancakes or as a part of a sausage egg and biscuit sandwich.
Pure Pork Breakfast Sausages:
1.5 pounds of local ground pork
1 ¼ tsp of sea salt
2 tsp dried sage
3/4/ tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp dark brown sugar
¼ tsp ground cloves
In a small bowl mix the salt and spices together to ensure they are well combined.  In a large bowl spread the pork out along the bottom of the bowl and sprinkle half the spice evenly over the meat.  Mix in.  Spread the meat out again and sprinkle the remaining spice over the meat.  Mix well.
Put the meat in a zip top bag or covered bowl for an hour or over night to allow the flavors to blend.  Then form into a patty and cook over medium heat for a couple minutes each side until cooked through but still juicy.  Spicing is a personal thing, cook one patty and taste then adjust the seasoning to your taste.
Now if there was a way to fix how laws are made. J