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Category: stock

I feel much more nearly human – rabbit in a habanero cider gravy, spinach, duck soup

Last night was wonderful! Right before the end of work, I had a friend give me a ring to tell me he was in the area and would I like company.

So he came over and cooked for me.

So let me try to tell you what he cooked, oh man!

He took my lil ole thawed rabbit and cut it into sections. Then he dredged it in flour that had been generously seasoned with basil, smoked paprika, savory, thyme, and black pepper. Fried the rabbit. and then we set that aside.

Then we took leeks, which had been sliced in half lengthwise, cut into half-circles less than a quarter inch thick all the way up – white and green parts – and then thoroughly cleaned, and fried them in the oil, too. and then set aside.

Next, he put in a whole container of portobella mushrooms, which had been cleaned and the tips of the stems trimmed but whole, and then once that started releasing juice, he added some five or six cloves of garlic, chopped roughly, and the flesh only of one habanero pepper – and cooked until the garlic was just browning and luscious. He added the leeks, cooked for a little bit together, and then put them back in the bowl on the side.

Then he made gravy with more of the seasoned flour, oil, a bottle of Wood Chuck dark brown cider, and some chicken stock. He added the veggies back tot he gravy and then added the rabbit. We set that to simmer, on pretty high heat for simmering, while I made turmeric rice.

So good.

~*~

Other recent successful experiments in food have included:

Spinach of yum
Clean and remove stems from spinach.

Saute some garlic and a purple onion, sliced thinly but long enough to have texture, and once that is going decently, add all the spinach. When wilted, add unagi sauce. Crack two eggs into the pan – scramble all about.

Best Duck Soup Ever
I had gotten the duck carcass after the last time my family went out for peking duck, and it had been sitting in my freezer. Then I found a little shop where I got half a roast duck for $7 – including the head. Woot!

So I ate up the meat and skins and put the residue in my stock pot with the frozen carcass.

Then I added the base of a bunch of celery, the base of a head of napa cabbage, some carrots, a lot of garlic, some black peppercorns, a bay leaf, some five spice powder, and some red onion. And water. Cook cook cook. Then I removed some of the goodie so I could fit in even more water and make more broth because my pot was pretty packed with goodie. Cook cook cook. Let sit over night. Cook cook cook (boiling at least 20 minutes). Let cook enough to work with. Strain through cheesecloth.

Then I heated the stock back up to boiling and added baby bok choi, some long strands of oniony stuff from the asian grocery, and a bundle of buckwheat soba noodles.

It was so good – it didn’t even need the seasoning adjusted at all.

Stock report

So end result:
1 qt of chicken stock frozen for my mother
48 ice cubes of chicken stock put up properly in my freezer
1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock in my fridge waiting to turn into ice cubes
1 1/4 quarts of duck stock in the fridge

I think I need to get everything frozen before I leave the house for a week.

And both refrigerators at work will have maintenance done over break, so I can’t store the leftover lunches I have put together and frozen. It’ll be a fine trick to fit everything in.

I think I can do it, if I leave the ice cube trays out of the freezer after I empty them and just put the containers in whole. Things *should* fit.

Here is the story of the lamb stock

So my mother and I both bought small lamb roasts, and I stole her leftovers. After I made my roast, I cut the leftover meat off both of them to use for curry… but I was fairly careless as I am only one person and there was still plenty meat.

So I had fairly meaty bone pieces, yay.

First into the pot —
*one yellow onion and one purple onion, slightly trimmed and quartered… but with skins intact
*about 10 or so cloves of garlic. I have them pre-peeled and just tipped the jar, but if I were going from a pod, I would not peel the cloves and just cut them in half to expose the goody.
*bunch o black peppercorns (maybe 10-15… maybe more) again, I just tipped the container
*two stalks of celery

Then I put in to bones. YAY!

Then —
*three parsnips cleaned and trimmed, but not peeled
*6-8 baby carrots
*handful of parsley
*handful of thyme (finished off what was left in my herb pot because it froze that night)
*one bay leaf
*some shreds of ginger peel

And enough water to fill the pot.

Boil.

The next day, the meat on the bones had softened enough that it just fell into the water… I boiled the bare bones for just a bit longer before pulling them out and replacing them with two turkey necks.

More boiling.

Maybe by the end of today, or maybe tomorrow, I will strain it — but — damn — it smells lovely.

As of now, I think the addition of turkey was a good idea…

because The Joy of Cooking suggests making beef stock with some chicken parts to make it richer. When I have made beef stock in the past (w/o adding chicken), it was indeed a bit thin. Right now I have lamb stock going from bones pulled out of finished roasts of meat… it should be thin… but it smells amazing already. Do I:

And then when it was originally posted there was a poll here –
Leave it alone. It’s supposed to be lamb. Why would you but chicken in lamb stock?
4 (40.0%)

Add the chicken… It can only make things tastier. Purity is for silly people.
6 (60.0%)