Tag: celery

• 

  Ham Hock And Cabbage Soup Pressure Cooker

  I recently posted a slow cooker version of this ham and cabbage soup. It takes about 6 hours but it is well worth the wait. 

  If you don’t have that long or like me you have gone a bit ‘pressure cooker mad’, you might want to try this version. Once the cooker is up to pressure it takes just 20 minutes.

  

  Steps

  1. Preparing the vegetables
  2. Pressure cooking (20 mins)
  3. Pulling the ham
  4. Serving

  Equipment

  • 1 chefs knife
  • 1 vegetable peeler
  • 1 pressure cooker

  Ingredients

  • 1 ham hock
  • 1 brown onion, diced
  • 1 carrot, sliced
  • 3 celery stalks, diced
  • A handful of celery leaves, torn
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 medium cabbage, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
  • 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock (or less if your pressure cooker is smaller)
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

  Preparing the vegetables

  This is always the fun bit for me. 🙂

  Prepare the following ingredients and add them to the pressure cooker: 

  • 1 brown onion
  • 1 carrot
  • 3 celery stalks
  • A handful of celery leaves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 medium cabbage
  • 2 garlic cloves

  Just look at the colours:

  

  

  Add the 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock and pop the ham hock on top.

  Note: check your pressure cooker can handle that much liquid. 

  

  Pressure cooking (~20 mins)

  Put on the lid and set your pressure cooker to 20 minutes. Let the pressure dissipate passively if you have the time.

  

  Pulling the ham

  By now the meat should be falling off the bone. Pull the whole hock out in one go, if you can, to avoid losing any small bits of bone in the soup.

  Pull and chop the ham and add it back to the soup. Mix everything gently then add pepper and salt to taste.

  

  Serving

  Serve piping hot with garnish of choice and perhaps some crusty bread.

  

  This soup freezes well and I take it to work for the perfect snack or lunch.

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Here are a few soup posts and I thought you might like to see a few pork posts too. 

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  September 14, 2019

• 

  Ham Hock And Cabbage Soup Slow Cooker

  I love a ham hock soup and growing up, Pea And Ham Soup was a regular treat.

  Did you know you can make a mean ham soup using cabbage instead of split peas? I have been making it this winter and wanted to share the recipe with you. 

  I have a pressure cooker variant but here I present the slow cooker version that you can start in the morning for dinner (6 to 8 hrs on low).  

  

  Steps

  1. Preparing the vegetables
  2. Slow cooking (~6hrs)
  3. Pulling the ham
  4. Serving

  Equipment

  • 1 chefs knife
  • 1 vegetable peeler
  • 1 slow cooker

  Ingredients

  • 1 ham hock
  • 1 brown onion, diced
  • 1 carrot, sliced
  • 3 celery stalks, diced
  • A handful of celery leaves, torn
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 medium cabbage, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
  • 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

  Preparing the vegetables

  This is always the fun bit for me. 🙂

  Prepare the following ingredients and add them to the slowcooker: 

  • 1 brown onion
  • 1 carrot
  • 3 celery stalks
  • A handful of celery leaves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 medium cabbage
  • 2 garlic cloves

  Add the 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock and pop the ham hock on top.

  

  Slow cooking (~6hrs)

  Put on the lid and then cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

  

  Pulling the ham

  By now the meat should be falling off the bone. Pull the whole hock out in one go, if you can, to avoid losing any small bits of bone in the soup.

  Pull and chop the ham and add it back to the soup. Mix everything gently then add pepper and salt to taste.

  

  Serving

  Serve piping hot with garnish of choice and perhaps some crusty bread.

  

  This soup freezes well and I take it to work for the perfect snack or lunch.

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Here are a few soup posts and I thought you might like to see a few pork posts too. 

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  September 1, 2019

• 

  PK’s Slow Cooked Rabbit Soup

  This one is just for Dad because my kids are big into Peter Rabbit at the moment. 🙂 Rabbit soup is just as easy to make as chicken soup, especially if you use a slow cooker.

  Note: Rabbit is a lean meat that makes for a very light healthy soup.

  Simply

  1. Cut up your rabbit like so.
  2. Chop up your vegetables, I used onion, celery, carrot, green beans and coriander roots.
  3. Add some bay leaves, a sprig of thyme and a hearty slash of dry white wine.
  4. Throw everything into your slow cooker (medium heat) with 4 cups rabbit stock (any stock will do actually) and 4 cups water.
  5. Add some duck fat if you like as it helps keep the meat moist.
  6. Wait for 4 – 6 hours, stirring occasionally.
  7. Pull the meat off the bones (turn the latter into bone meal for a great soil improver), returning it to the slow cooker.

  Serving

  It just needs a bowl, some cracked pepper and crusty bread drowned in butter. 🙂

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  ---

  YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

  OUR OTHER SLOW COOKER RECIPES

  ---

  Please consider subscribing to a weekly email summary of our posts or check us out on Facebook @growitcatchitcookit.

  [mc4wp_form id=”15771″]

  ---

   

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  May 2, 2018

• 

  PK’s Chicken And Pasta Soup

  Simply take a chicken frame or two (hopefully from the whole chicken you just deboned) and place in your slow cooker. Now add water until the frames are covered. Sometimes I also throw in a chicken leg or two (on the bone).

  Chop up a brown onion, several celery sticks and several carrots (I leave them pretty chunky) and add them to the slow cooker. Add salt and pepper to taste and a bay leaf.

  Let it cook overnight on low, if you have time, to really get a tasty broth going. By this stage the meat is falling off the bone. I pull the bones out at this point to make Bone Meal (a great source of slow release nitrogen) for my garden.

  Serving

  Just before serving I add 2 cups of pre-cooked pasta and a bit more water if needed.

  This soup freezes well so I keep several portions aside for the ultimate in thrifty work lunches 🙂

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Related Links:

  • see more soup post here
  • see more slow cooker posts here
  • see more chicken posts here

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  October 15, 2017

• 

  PK’s Pea And Ham Hock Soup

  Talk about nostalgia. My mum used to make this for me as a kid and it brings back happy memories every time. I think I might have done my mum proud with my recipe and stayed true to the dish’s thriftiness to boot :). It also freezes well so I got a whole week’s worth of lunches.

  You don’t have to cook pea and ham soup in a slow cooker but it is worth the low and slow cook for the extra depth of taste you will get. I will also leave the decision to blend or leave the soup chunky up to you. I did a halfway option, blended soup with some of the ham left chunky.

  You will be:

  1. Preparing your ingredients
  2. Cooking low and slow
  3. Removing the bones
  4. Blending or not
  5. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 1.5 cups dried yellow split peas
    • 2 celery sticks, rough chopped
    • 2 carrots, rough chopped
    • 1 brown onion, rough chopped
    • 1 bay leaf
    • 1 ham hock (mine was ~850g)
    • 10 cups water
  •  Equipment:
    • a long sharp knife
    • a chopping board
    • a slow cooker
    • a pair of kitchen tongs
    • a wooden spoon
    • a stick mixer

  Preparing your ingredients

  1. Thoroughly rinse the split peas under cold water until it runs clear.
  2. Place them at the bottom of your slow cooker, turn this on to low.
  3. Chop the:
     • 2 celery sticks
     • 2 carrots
     • 1 brown onion
  4. Add them on top of the layer of split peas.
  5. Add the bay leaf.
  6. Add the ham hock after giving it a quick rinse.
  7. Add 10 cups of water and cover.

  

  

  

  

  

  Cooking low and slow

  Cook for about 6 to 8 hours (more if the meat is not falling off the bone) turning the hock over every now and again.

  

  Removing the bones

  Remove the main bones and then look carefully for any other little bones. This is important if you are going to blend the soup. You can use the bones to make Bone Meal for your garden.

  

  Blending or not

  Blend the soup now if you want to. I did but I kept some of the ham hock whole for serving purposes.

  Serving

  Some crusty bread and cracked black pepper would go a treat :).

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Related Links:

  • see more soup post here
  • see more slow cooker posts here
  • see more pork posts here

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  September 7, 2017

• 

  PK’s Coq Au Vin

  I have been sitting on this post for about 9 months now because I wasn’t sure it looked appealing. I was worried that you wouldn’t be inspired enough to try it.

  Sometimes though we need to be reminded that we are our own worst critic and a good friend of mine just did that. She said its picture looked ‘tasty and who cares what it looks like anyway’ and this made me remember that this blog is all about food connection and the way food makes you feel.

  So here it is :).

  Coq au vin is a “peasant” French dish of braised chicken (cockerel traditionally) in red wine with a generous heap of bacon, onion, carrots and celery. I should have served with more sauce than shown in the photos below but rest assured the chicken was lovely and tender :).

  You will be:

  1. Preparing your ingredients
  2. Browning the chicken
  3. Making the sauce
  4. Slow cook everything
  5. Reducing the sauce
  6. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • a whole chicken, skin off, cut into quarters (mine was about 1.3kg)
    • 1 celery stick, chopped
    • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
    • 140g bacon, chopped (I used ‘short cut’ rashers)
    • 1 large brown onion, sliced
    • black peppercorns to taste, cracked
    • 1 cup plain flour to dust the chicken pieces
    • a good slug of olive oil
    • 2 cups red wine
    • 1/2 cup homemade chicken stock
    • A handful of small or chopped mushrooms
  •  Equipment:
    • a long sharp knife
    • a chopping board
    • an oven proof dish
    • tongs
    • a wooden spoon
    • a dish to keep chicken warm

  Preparing your ingredients

  1. Chop the 1 large brown onion into quarters or slices depending on your preference (you could even use a few whole shallots instead).
  2. Chop the 2 carrots and the celery stick the way you want too (sometime I prefer larger pieces of vegetables in this dish).
  3. Quarter the whole chicken (I recommend this knife), remove the skin and dust in flour and black pepper.
  4. Chop the 140g of bacon.

  

  

  Browning the chicken

  1. Chuck a good slug of olive oil in the oven proof dish and put it on the hob (medium heat).
  2. Brown chicken on all sides.
  3. Take the chicken pieces out, put them on a plate and chuck them in an oven on very low heat to keep them warm.

  

  

  Making the sauce

  1. Put a good slug of red wine to moisten the oven proof dish and then add the:
     • 1 celery stick, chopped
     • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
     • 140g bacon, chopped
     • 1 large brown onion, sliced
  2. Throw in the handful of chopped mushrooms.
  3. Add the remainder of the 2 cups red wine and bring to the boil to cook off the alcohol.
  4. Replace the chicken, cover and put the hob on low heat.

   

  

  Slow cook everything

  Cook for about an hour, turning the chicken every now and again.

  Reducing the sauce

  Remove the chicken again and put it back into the oven to keep it warm while you reduce the rest of the sauce.

  

  

  Serving

  Mashed or boiled potatoes will go a treat and I also recommend adding some steamed snow peas pods and a nice crusty baguette :).

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Related Links:

  • See more chicken recipe posts here

   

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  August 31, 2017

• 

  PK’s Creamy Cauliflower And Parmesan Soup With Soft Pork Belly

  I was day dreaming about a new dish for dinner and thought it would be cool to try pork belly with this soup instead of bacon.

  Hope you like it.

  Pork belly aside, the soup only takes about 30 minutes to cook and the hands on bit only takes 10 of them.

  You will be:

  1. Making the pork belly
  2. Making the cauliflower soup
  3. Serving

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • A slice of pork belly for each serving (ingredients are here)
    • A good slug of olive oil
    • 1 celery stalk, rough chopped
    • 1/2 onion, rough chopped
    • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
    • 1 potato,  rough chopped
    • 3 cups PK’s Slow Cooker Chicken Stock
    • 1 bay leaf
    • 500g cauliflower florets
    • 1/2 cup milk
    • 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
    • Water, add in small portions if soup is too thick
  •  Equipment:
    • 1 chef’s knife
    • 1 chopping board
    • 1 soup pan
    • 1 stick mixer
    • 1 wooden spoon

  Making the pork belly

  Make and then chill a strip of pork belly for each serve. Please see the recipe here.

  Making the cauliflower soup

  1. Chuck a slug of olive oil into the pan and bring it to a medium low heat.
  2. Add and sweat the chopped:
     • 1 celery stalk
     • 1/2 brown onion
     • 1 garlic clove
  3. Add the bay leaf.
  4. Add the 500g cauliflower florets and 1 potato and sweat for another minute or so.
  5. Add the three cups of chicken stock and bring to the boil.
  6. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or the potato is cooked.
  7. Pull out the bay leaf
  8. Allow to cool a little and add the 1/2 cup of milk and blend with a stick mixer.
  9. Add small amounts of water if the soup is too thick for your liking (remember that we are about to add cheese which will thicken it further),
  10. Add the 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and mix with a wooden spoon or the like.

  Serving

  My original idea was to serve the soup warm with a piece of pork belly. I ended up chilling the soup however. It was marvelous and the pork belly really complimented the soup’s gentle flavours.

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  ---

  YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

  MORE SOUP RECIPES

  PORK DISHES

  ---

  Please consider subscribing to a weekly email summary of our posts or check us out on Facebook @growitcatchitcookit.

  [mc4wp_form id=”15771″]

  ---

   

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  May 7, 2017

• 

  PK’s Creamy Cauliflower And Parmesan Soup With Pork Belly

  I was day dreaming about a new dish for dinner and thought it would be cool to try pork belly with this soup instead of bacon.

  Hope you like it.

  You will be:

  1. Making the pork belly.
  2. Making the cauliflower soup.
  3. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • a slice of pork belly for each serving (ingredients are here)
    • a good slug of olive oil
    • 1 celery stalk, rough chopped
    • 1/2 onion, rough chopped
    • 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
    • 1 potato,  rough chopped
    • 3 cups PK’s Slow Cooker Chicken Stock
    • 1 bay leaf
    • 500g cauliflower florets
    • 1/2 cup milk
    • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
    • water to taste, add in small portions if soup is too thick
  •  Equipment:
    • a long sharp knife
    • a chopping board
    • kitchen shears
    • a deep pan
    • stick mixer
    • wooden spoon

  Making the pork belly

  Make and then chill a strip of pork belly for each serve. Please see the recipe here.

  

  Making the cauliflower soup

  1. Chuck a slug of olive oil into the pan and bring it to a medium low heat.
  2. Add and sweat the chopped:
     • 1 celery stalk
     • 1/2 brown onion
     • 1 garlic clove
  3. Add the bay leaf.
  4. Add the 500g cauliflower florets and 1 potato and sweat for another minute or so.
  5. Add the three cups of chicken stock and bring to the boil.
  6. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes or the potato is cooked.
  7. Allow to cool and add the 1/2 cup of milk and blend with a stick mixer.
  8. Add small amounts of water if the soup is too thick for your liking (remember that we are about to add cheese which will thicken it further),
  9. Add the 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and mix with a wooden spoon or the like.

  Serving

  My original idea was to serve the soup with a piece of pork belly. I ended up doing so but chilled the soup and unlike the picture, chopped the pork belly into cubes. The pork belly’s skin was crisp enough to not be chewy but not be all about the crackling and the meat really complimented the soup’s gentle flavours.

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  May 7, 2017

• 

  PK Makes River Cottage’s Citrus Braised Lamb Shanks

  Everyone has a dish that they feel slightly guilty about. Guilty because somehow it turns out exceptionally good every single time.  This is mine and it has magical powers :).

  It is originally from the hit Channel 4 series and books, ‘River Cottage’ and I merely adapted it to work in a slow cooker. I like dishes that are a bit different and I prefer this lighter white wine and citrus version over traditional red wine based lamb shank recipes.

  River Cottage’s Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstool can’t have known its romantic power when he added this dish to his cookbook though, surely not. It was the first meal I cooked for my wife to be and she fell madly in love with me. That’s the magical bit and might contradict her version of events :).

  You will be:

  1. Sweating the vegetables in the slow cooker.
  2. Browning the lamb shanks and deglazing the frypan.
  3. Cooking it slow.
  4. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 4 lamb shanks
    • 2 carrots
    • 1 large brown onion
    • 2 celery sticks
    • 2 bay leaves
    • 2 garlic cloves, peeled
    • a few sprigs of fresh thyme or lemon thyme
    • a small handful of parsley or celery leaves, chopped
    • 1 large orange
    • 1 large lemon
    • half a bottle of white wine (I used a Sauvignon blanc)
    • 1 cup of home made stock (I used chicken stock as that was all I had) or 1 cup water
    • several slugs of olive oil
    • a good slug of tomato paste
    • ground rock salt to taste
    • cracked black peppercorns to taste
    • 0.5 Tbsp whole black peppercorns (optional)
    • A handful of small or chopped mushrooms (optional)
  •  Equipment:
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • kitchen tongs
    • a wooden spoon
    • a citrus zester
    • a citrus juicer
    • a large frypan
    • a slow cooker

  Steps:

  Sweating the vegetables in the slow cooker

  1. Put a slug of olive oil into your slow cooker and turn it on high, lid on.
  2. Rough chop the:
     • 2 carrots.
     • 2 celery sticks.
     • handful of parsley or celery leaves.
  3. Finely slice the 1 large brown onion.
  4. Finely chop the 2 garlic cloves.
  5. Add the above to your slow cooker to start them softening up, lid on (mix everything around occasionally).
  6. Once the onions have started to soften, throw in the 2 bay leaves and the sprigs of thyme.
  7. If you like a bit of peppery kick, chuck 0.5 Tbsp of black peppercorns in too.
  8. Juice and then zest the lemon and the orange and add to the slow cooker (retain some of the mixed juice and zest for serving time).
  9. Add the 1 cup of stock or 1 cup of water and mix gently.
  10. Add a good slug of tomato paste.
  11. Add a handful of small mushrooms now if you are using them.

  I love seeing ingredients together like this:

  

  Nice and soft:

  

   

  Browning the lamb shanks and deglazing the frypan

  1. Season the 4 lamb shanks with salt and pepper.
  2. Chuck another slug of olive oil into the pan and bring to medium heat.
  3. Slightly brown every surface of the shanks. Yep, even the ends with a bit of creative meat stacking :).
  4. Then add them to the slow cooker.
  5. I now deglaze the frypan with half a bottle of white wine. When boiling I then add it to the slow cooker.
  6. If the slow cooker looks a bit full don’t panic. Everything will shrink down as it cooks :).

  

  Cooking it slow

  1. Turn your slow cooker to medium and cook for at least 2 hours using kitchen tongs to periodically move the shanks around.
  2. Now you can keep the slow cooker on medium for speed or turn it down to low for a slower cook (my preference).
  3. When the meat is literally falling of the bone, when you are giving it a gentle mix with the kitchen tongs, it is ready.

   Serving

  I generally serve the shanks on a bed of mashed potato with some steamed green vegetables alongside. This time though I cooked my PK’s NoRecipe Oven Baked Potatoes and served the shanks on the bone with some greens.

  Remember how we set aside some mixed zest and juice? Sprinkle a bit of the zest and then drizzle some juice over each serve to freshen the citrus flavours and aromas.

  On or off the bone this dish is visually appealing:

  

  

  Make this dish for someone you love,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  February 17, 2017

• 

  PK’s Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

  This was the first time I have made my own stock. Up until this point I had thought it wasn’t worth the time and effort required. I couldn’t have been more wrong :).

  After a quick bit of prep I left it to its own devices overnight. In the morning I recovered the left over ingredients, filtered the stock and froze it in 2 cup batches.

  I got so much joy and reward from making this stock because I:

  • got to be in the kitchen cooking :).
  • gave a second chance to some carrots at the back of the fridge.
  • picked fresh vegetables from the garden with my young son.
  • used parts of chickens that normally go to waste.
  • didn’t add any packaging to landfill.
  • recovered the cooked vegetables for my compost bin.
  • recovered the bones to make my own bone meal for soil improvement (post coming soon).
  • retained some rendered chicken fat for cooking (hey I never said this was a good health blog hehehehe).
  • got an amazingly tasty stock that is salt, sugar and preservative free.

  STEPS:

  1. Get some chicken bones
  2. Gather/harvest and chop your vegetables
  3. Slow cooker time
  4. Straining
  5. Storing
  6. Recovery and resuse (optional)
  7. Defrosting

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 2 onions
    • 4 carrots
    • 2 – 4 celery stalks (leaves on)
    • 1 Tbsp peppercorns
    • 1 handful of basil leaves
    • 2kg of chicken bones and/or carcasses
    • 2.5L of water
  • Equipment
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • a tablespoon
    • a 1 cup measuring cup
    • a strainer (like you would use for pasta)
    • a fine mesh sieve
    • a large pot
    • several deep dishes to hold the leftover vegetables and bones
    • a slow cooker
    • freezer containers or glass jars
    • a butter knife when it comes time to defrost the stock

  Get some chicken bones

  There must be tons of methods for doing this but I went to the butchers and bought 6 chicken carcasses. It cost me $5 AUD and they weighed approximately 2.2kgs. There was a little bit of meat on them too.

  

  Steps:

  1. I took each carcass and wrenched them in the middle to separate them into halves. I only did that to help them fit into the slow cooker though.
  2. Put them aside and turn your slow cooker on its lowest setting.

  Gather/harvest and chop your vegetables

  

  Steps:

  1. Take about 4 stalks of celery (leaves on and hopefully fresh from your garden) and give them a good wash. Tap dry and then rough chop.
  2. Rough chop the 4 carrots (skin on) and 2 onions.
  3. Rough chop a handful of basil leaves (not stems). I used some from my garden that I had previously frozen.
  4. Add all the vegetables to the now warmed up slow cooker along with 1 Tbsp of peppercorns.

  Slow cooker time

  

  Steps:

  1. Place the chicken carcasses on top of the vegetables and pour in enough boiling water to cover everything. In my case this was 2.5L.
  2. Don’t worry if the slow cooker is full to the brim and a bit squishy. By the end everything will have shrunk down and there will be plenty of room to stir everything.
  3. Let it simmer for as long as you can but at least 8 hours on low. I didn’t have to add any water the whole time but keep an eye on the water levels.
  4. As you notice a bit of space developing you can start to give it the odd stir.

  In this picture you can see how everything has reduced down:

  

  Straining

  The last few steps can be a little time consuming if you want to make the best use of the left over ingredients.

  Steps:

  1. Pour everything into a pasta colander (or a strainer that will catch most of the larger ingredients but still let the liquid through easily) over a large saucepan. I was worried that using a fine mesh sieve at this point would end with stock all over the place so I used this two part process.
  2. Now run the stock through the fine mesh sieve over the slow cooker and pour the stock in slowly.
  3. Clean the sieve under the tap and then run the stock through it again but into the original saucepan.
  4. Keep putting the vegetables and bones aside if you intend to recover them.
  5. Let the now filtered stock cool in the fridge slightly to get the skim of fat on the top.
  6. Spoon a tiny bit of the fat skim off but don’t be too fastidious as I have a tip for that later. We don’t want to lose any more of the precious stock than we have too :).

  Storing

  At this stage the stock should be super tasty but it will also be oily. I trialled two methods for dealing with this.

  Steps:

  1. Initially I placed a sheet of paper towel on the surface of the stock and let it slowly draw in the fat beads. I carefully removed the paper towel and disposed of it.
  2. I then used a 1 cup measuring cup to ladle the stock into several freezer containers.
  3. I then turned the containers upside down and froze them. This means that most of the fat beads will rise to the surface.

  In this picture you can see the beads of fat on the top and nice clean stock underneath:

  

  Recovery and Reuse

  I will expand on this in a later post but here are a few tips if you want to reuse the leftover ingredients. I had fun doing it but making the bone meal was a labour of love.

  1. Keep the bones for making your own bone meal.
  2. Chuck the vegetables into the compost bin.

  Defrosting

  I would like to show you now the advantage of freezing them upside down in a slightly concave shaped container.

  Steps:

  1. Pop the lid off the container and let it ever so slightly thaw.
  2. Turn the container upside down again and pop the stock out.
  3. Using a butter knife, scrape the fat off the top of the stock block.

  I got about 1 Tbsp of fat off two cups of stock, enough to fry up some potatoes I bet :).

  I would love to hear from you if you have any tips you want to share about making stock.

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 6, 2016