Tasty fat-free mushrooms

Mushrooms, like aubergines, soak up oil if you give them the chance. Here's a way of locking in taste without using any fat at all.

Put equal quantities of wine* and stock** in the pan - just enough to stop your mushroom slices burning. Add a few drops of Worcester sauce, or soy sauce, or balsamic vinegar. Put the pan on a medium heat. Watch and stir. The mushrooms will exude their juices after a few minutes; turn up the heat and boil off all the liquid. Watch them carefully; they are ready when the last of the liquid evaporates. Delicious.


* red or white is fine; I sometimes use Marsala, which gives a strong flavour to the mushrooms (not great at breakfast)

** I've always got stock in the fridge, either chicken stock, or Fergus Henderson's fabulous trotter gear. If you don't go in for this sort of thing, just use bouillon


Related links

Foolproof recipe for fuss-free chicken stock
Jellied pork stock - easy to make, keeps for months in the fridge, adds depth to everything it touches

In praise of stock

Not sure why making stock is such a problem for so many people. It takes moments of your time, and makes everything taste better. So much better, that I got one of my children to eat lentil soup AND ENJOY IT.

There's no doubt that making stock satisfies my inner 40s housewife: when there's no stock in the fridge, I arrange the shopping and eating so that I can make some straightaway. I never freeze it: if there's a glut, then we eat risotto or soup, the two biggest consumers of stock.

Recently, I've been making Fergus Henderson's highly flavoured "trotter gear", a stock made of pork, garlic and wine, very good and cheap to make. But my mainstay is chicken stock, made with the carcass of a roasted chicken, although I sometimes use raw chicken wings. Either way, I use a lot of vegetables, and lots of different ones to give a depth of flavour: peppercorns, herbs from the garden, mushroom stalks - whatever there is.

There's no real recipe - you need to make it a few times to feel your way to the stock you like. But here are some of the things I wish I'd known when I first started to make stock, three decades ago.

1. Put in plenty of halved onions, but don't peel them - the skins will colour the stock
2. Use stalks and peelings - my stockpot generally contains parsley and mushroom stalks, carrot peelings, celery leaves. DON'T put in potato in any form, as the starch will cloud the stock
3. Use loads of vegetables - three or four onions, three or four carrots. Their flavour will shine through, saving you time later when you're making soup or risotto
4. Put in a handful of whole peppercorns, they add depth of flavour without heat. I'm currently using a mixture of pink, white and black peppercorns.
5. DON'T put in anything with a very strong flavour, unless you need it in the dish you will make with the stock - I'm thinking of cabbage, cloves, chilli
6. Don't cover the carcass with water - the stock is always better, always more like to jell if the water comes 2/3rd of the way up.
7. No need to boil it to death - a gentle simmer for no more than two hours gives you great flavour. Strain it when it's hot, and get it into the fridge as soon as you can. A conical sieve is the best tool here, but I used an ordinary colander for 25 years.
8. If you've got no stock, use water instead

The more flavours you put into your stockpot, the more flavour there will be in your stock - the less flavour you need to put into your weekday cooking. Frugal food that makes your life easier. The lentil soup I made yesterday was cooked in very strong stock, and tasted of carrots and chicken. Utterly delicious, utterly unsuitable for a vegetarian. But there's a good link below if you'd like to make vegetarian stock.

Things I've made with stock in the past year or so ... apart from dozens of risottos, soups, gravies

Stuffed cabbage
Gravy - try this one with Delia's spiced orange chutney
Stewed broad beans
Braised lettuce
Chicken nosh
Rabbi Blue's meatballs
Braised mixed lentils
Poached barley with herbs

Links to stock on other blogs

How to make stock from chicken's feet
If you don't make your own stock, use water instead
How to make vegetable stocks

Jellied stock good enough to eat on its own

Okay, this post is not for the squeamish. But it IS for anyone who likes complex flavours in their food, for anyone who hates waste, and for anyone who has access to a butcher's shop. Emphatically not supermarket food.

For once, I'm following a recipe to the letter. Next time I won't be so literal ... I won't put in as much Madeira, because the result is very sweet. It's not exactly a waste of good Madeira, because the taste shines through, but in this house I think we'd probably rather drink it than use it quite so liberally in the cooking.

The recipe comes from Fergus Henderson's book Beyond Nose to Tail Eating. It's the sequel to Nose to Tail Eating, a book which I have not yet read, although I ordered both at the same time. The recipe for this wondrous stock - which Henderson calls Trotter Gear - has been several years in the making, and therefore does not appear in the first book. But loads of the dishes Henderson makes with it are in both books, and I will definitely be making them.


















Trotter gear

6 pig's trotters (I used four)
2 onions (peeled)
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
2 leeks
1 head of garlic
thyme
a handful of peppercorns
1/2 bottle of Madeira
enough chicken stock to cover the trotters

Get the butcher to split the trotters. Put them in a large casserole, cover with water and boil for five minutes. Drain and rinse off the scum. Put back into the rinsed casserole with all the other ingredients. Bring to a simmer, then put in a low oven for three hours or more - until the meat is falling off the bone.

When the trotters are cool enough to handle, strip off the flesh. Shred it, and put into a Le Parfait jar. Strain the stock over it. Seal, and keep in the fridge. Do this while everything is still warm, because it's much harder when the meat is cold.


If you are a little squeamish but have managed so far, you could just strain the stock off, and not worry about using the meat. I might do this next time, because my dogs were keen as mustard to get hold of the trotters, and they'd be a fabulous treat for two Jack Russells.

Either way, the meaty basis of this nectar cost £1. Jellied stock, sitting in my fridge. Five minutes' work. So many possibilities.