I have a bunch of other recipes to write up, but I'm doing this one right away because I took a lot of liberties with the recipe and I don't want to forget what I did. I don't normally use a recipe for stock, I pretty much just put a bunch of things in a pot, add water and heat, and wait for it to become delicious. That method has always worked pretty well for me. And it's a great way to use up odd bits of stuff and vegetable peels. I actually made an amazing stock a few months ago that was pretty much just leftover chicken bones, onion, garlic, vegetable peels, and some spices. I honestly wish I'd done a write-up for that one. It ended up being one of the best stocks I've ever made. But I should stop reminiscing about that stock and start talking about this stock. This stock is (loosely) based on a recipe out of Offal Good. As I said, I made quite a few modifications to make it fit what I had avaialbe, but it's still inspired by their recipe.

The original recipe is for veal stock. It calls for veal knuckles, onion, carrot, celery, fennel, garlic, tomato paste, bay leaves, black pepper, coriander seeds, fresh parsley, and thyme. I didn't have veal knuckles, but I did have some beef soup bones that needed using, so I used them! I didn't have any fennel either, so I just tossed in some fennel seeds instead. I did have tomato paste, but I also had some fire-roasted diced tomatoes sitting in the fridge that needed to be used, so I swapped them in. The tomato paste is more concentrated and was meant to be added to the vegetables for roasting. Hopefully the larger volume and fire-roasting helps make up for the less concentrated flavour. I also tossed in a small amount of cilantro, mostly because I had it and I figured it would complement the coriander seeds.

The other big change with this recipe is that I was making it after grilling some short ribs. The ribs were braised for a couple hours first and then grilled and basted with a barbecue sauce made from some of the braising liquid. Afterward I filled a roasting pan with soup bones and vegetables and poured the leftover braising liquid over them. I roasted everything together until the veggies were tender and delicious and the liquid had cooked down to a delicious glaze. We ate most of the roasted veggies with dinner, but the soup bones and glaze went into the pot for stock. Then, instead of roasting more veggies for the stock, I just put raw ones into the pot. Maybe the broth won't be quite as flavourful that way, but I'm hoping that the glaze and roasted bones will make up for it. It certainly smells like it's going to be a delicious stock!

Veal/Beef Stock

Adapted from Offal Good by Chris Cosentino

Ingredients

• 2kg beef or veal bones¹
• 1 onion, quartered
• 1 carrot, cut into large chunks
• 2 stalks celery, cut into large chunks
• 2-6 cloves garlic²
• 2L water
• 2 c. diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp. coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp. fennel seeds
• 1/4 c. fresh parsley
• 1 Tbsp. fresh cilantro (optional)
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt

Directions

1. Roast your soup bones. I roasted mine on the barbecue with a whole mess of veggies, garlic, scallion oil, and some leftover braising liquid from cooking short ribs. If you're not doing any of that, then just roast them in the oven at 180°C (350°F) for ~45 minutes.
2. Dump your roasted soup bones into a pot. (I like using the InstantPot for this, but a regular pot on the stove works too.)
3. Optional: You may also roast your veggies if desired. Half an hour at 180°C (350°F) should do the trick. If you're using tomato paste, rather than diced tomatoes, toss the veggies with it before roasting. Otherwise, leave the tomatoes out until you're adding everything to the pot.
4. Add (optionally roaste) veggies to the pot with the roasted bones.
5. Add water, tomatoes (if using), bay leaf, peppercorns, coriander, fennel, parsley, cilantro (if using), thyme, and salt.
6. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for at least 8 hours.
7. Cool, strain, and discard solids.
8. Stock may be frozen for future use. I like to freeze mine in ice cube trays to have easy portions available as needed.

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¹ I'm not sure exactly how many soup bones I had, but I think it was probably ~2kg give or take. ^Back
2 I only added two cloves of garlic to the stock because I'd already added six cloves to the braising liquid for the ribs and a further nine to the roasting pan when cooking the veggies. Now, some of that garlic ended up in the barbecue sauce and some ended up getting eaten with dinner, but there was still a lot of garlic-y goodness in the soup bones and the glaze that went into the pot with them, so I felt pretty comfortable going light on the garlic in the pot. If you're making this fresh, without the benefit of braising liquid/glaze/etc., then I'd recommend tossing at least five or six cloves of garlic in the pot. ^Back

Chinese Chicken Stock

I don't normally use a recipe for chicken stock. Chicken bones, maybe a neck, and a bunch of veggies and/or peelings go in a pot with some salt and water and maybe a few herbs. Cook everything together until delicious, strain, use or freeze as needed. No recipe necessary! But, after trying the Chinese vegetable stock recipe and being so impressed by it, I figured I'd give the chicken stock recipe on the next page a try as well.

It was fine. It was a perfectly acceptable chicken stock. But it wasn't really anything special. It wasn't any better than my "just throw a bunch of things in a pot" method. It wasn't worse. It was just... very standard, run-of-the-mill chicken stock. It didn't have the depth and intensity that I was expecting based on how the vegetable stock came out. Nothing wrong with it; it just didn't rock my world.

Chicken Stock

Slightly adapted from Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo

Ingredients

• 1 whole (3.5kg) chicken, quartered
• 900g chicken wings
• 4L water
• 125g fresh ginger, lightly smashed
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 4-5 scallions, cut crosswise into thrids
• 2 onions, quartered
• 60g fresh cilantro, cut into 7cm lengths
• 1/4 c. fried onions (from Onion Oil)
• 1/4 c. goji berries (boxthorn seeds), soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt

Directions

1. Place the chicken parts (including giblets) in a large pot.
2. Add the water and other ingredients.
3. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Reduce heat to simmer and adjust lid so that the pot is still mostly covered, but with a small crack for steam to escape. Simmer for 5 hours, skimming as needed.
5. Remove from heat and allow to cool in pot.
6. Strain.
7. Stock may be refrigerated or frozen for later use.

Rappie Pie

I'm cheating a little bit here since this isn't something that I've ever made. It is one of my favourite foods in the whole wide world though. And my mom makes wonderful rappie pie, so I figured I'd write a bit about it. If I ever decide to try making it myself, I'll do another write-up (and hopefully remember to take pictures), but for now, I'll just share the process.

Rappie pie is another one of those dishes, like oxtail soup, that's really a labour of love. It's a lot of effort to make, but that just makes it so much more special since that means it can't really be every day fare.

At its core, rappie pie is really just potatoes and chicken. Sounds simple, right? But it's all in how you prepare them!

The raw potatoes must be grated extremely finely. Think "I am setting out to make potato flour" rather than "I am setting out to grate potatoes". And then the liquid must be squeezed out of them. If you are a hardcore, Acadian granny, you'll probably do this by hand, pressing the grated potatoes in cheesecloth. For the rest of us, this is where a juicer comes in handy.

Once the potatoes are all juiced, you need to measure how much liquid you got out of them. You don't need the liquid, you just need to know how much there was.

The other main component of rappie pie, chicken, can be dealt with a little more simply. You need to cut up and cook a whole chicken (preferably a big, tasty one) and then pick all the meat from the bones and shred it. The best approach is probably to treat it like you're making chicken soup. Cook it in a big pot with some water, salt, pepper, bay leaves, and whatever other seasonings you like in your chicken soup. Maybe toss in an onion or two and some carrot and celery as well.

Now you should have a big pile of shredded cooked chicken and a pot of stock which you should skim and strain before using. Along with your juiced potatoes, this is all you need to make rappie pie!

Remember when I said that you didn't need the potato juice but you needed to know how much there was? Yeah, that's because you're gonna replace all the liquid extracted from the potatoes with delicious, delicious chicken stock. You'll probably want to add a little more salt and pepper to the potatoes at this point too.

Now it's just a simple matter of layering the potatoes into a pan with the chicken and baking it. It doesn't look like much, but I promise, it's completely wonderful to eat! The edges get all lovely and crisp and the centre has a lovely creaminess to it with chunks of chicken burried inside. It is delicious!

Chinese Vegetable Stock

Since we're eating leftovers tonight, I guess now is a good time to post about the vegetable stock that I made last week. I completely forgot to do a write up when I made it initially, but I guess it all works out since it gives me something to write about today. The process was a little involved, but I think it'd go a lot smoother if I did it again, since I have all the ingredients on hand now.

Chinese Vegetable Stock
2.3L water
3/4 lbs. carrots, cut into thirds
3 yellow onions, quartered
3/4 lb. green onions, cut into thirds
3/4 lb. button mushrooms, quartered
6 ribs celery, cut into thirds
4 oz. fresh cilantro, very rough chopped
1/4 c. dried red dates (jujubes)
1/6 c. dried goji berries (wolfberries, boxthorn seeds)
4 oz. ginger paste (or fresh ginger, peeled, halved, and lightly smashed)
2 Tbsp. scallion oil
1/2 c. fried scallions (from scallion oil)
2 Tbsp. fried garlic (from garlic oil)
1 Tbsp. salt

First off, if you don't already have scallion oil (and fried scallions and garlic) on hand, you'll have to make some!

Scallion Oil (and Fried Scallions)
1 c. peanut oil
3/4 lb. scallions, very rough chopped

1. Lightly smash the white portions of the scallions.
2. Heat a wok over high heat for 30 seconds. Add the peanut oil followed by the scallions.
3. Once everything is vigorously bubbling, reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally for 20-30 minutes.
4. Strain the oil through a fine mess and allow to cool. Both oil and scallions will keep in the fridge for several months. (Use a sterilized jar for storing the oil.)

Garlic Oil (and Fried Garlic)
1/2 c. peanut oil
1 head garlic, thinly sliced

1. Heat a wok over high heat for 30 seconds. Add the peanut oil followed by the garlic.
2. Stir and reduce heat to medium.
3. Once everything is nicely bubbling, reduce heat to low, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.
4. Strain and store both oil and garlic as for scallion oil.

You begin to see why making this broth was such an involved process! Now I have both types of oil and the fried garlic and scallions on hand, so it'll be much easier in the future!

Now that all the frying and yak-shaving is done, onward to making our actual broth!

1. Soak the dates in very hot water. You'll want to let them sit in the water for at least half an hour, so do this first. Once the half our is up, drain them and add them to the pot.
2. Soak the goji berries in some very hot water. They should only need about 10 minutes of soaking. Once they're done, drain them and add them to the pot as well.
3. Add everything else to the pot! I did this in my crockpot, but it also works in a stock pot on the stove.
4. For the crockpot, I turned it on high for a few hours before switching it to low overnight. If you're doing it on the stove, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for at least 5 hours.

After a night simmering in my crockpot I was rewarded with some of the most delicious, rich-smelling stock I've ever seen! It was glorious! I'm pretty sure this is going to be my go-to vegetable stock recipe for the rest of forever!

In case anyone was wondering, I got this recipe out of Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking. I halved all the quantities to make it fit in my crockpot (and used a crockpot rather than stove top), but other than that, kept the recipe the same. I'm looking forward to trying her recipe for chicken stock at some point as well, but I had more immediate uses for the vegetable stock for now, so I figured I'd try that one first. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with how this turned out! Om nom nom!

Pancit Bihon

I know I've been posting a lot of Goons with Spoons recipes lately, but that's because there's an awful lot of delicious in that forum/wiki. This recipe is courtesy of the "Pilipino Pood" thread and can also be found on the GwS wiki.

I've been in a noodle-y sort of mood lately, so something using rice vermicelli was quite appealing. And, it even calls for carrots, which is great, because I have a bunch in the fridge that need to be used up!

The recipe as written has you making chicken stock from scratch. However, I had a bunch of delicious, wonderful pork stock left over from my adventures with sisig. So, I opted to use that as my liquid and go from there.

Pancit Bihon
4 chicken thighs
salt and pepper
oil
4 c. pork stock
~1/2 tsp. celery seed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
3 small carrots, peeled and julienned
1 pkg. Chinese sausage, sliced into coins
3 heads Shanghai bok choy, shredded
2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
1 (225g) pkg. rice vermicelli
3 green onions, chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Apply salt and pepper to the chicken thighs. Heat up a pot or wok with a bit of oil and sear the chicken. (I used skinless, boneless thighs because I already had some pork stock on hand. Skin-on, bone-in will be better if you're starting with water instead of stock.)
2. Add the stock (or water) to the pot/wok, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken is done.
3. Empty the pot/wok, reserving both chicken and stock. Shred the chicken.
4. Brown the garlic, adding a little oil to the pot/wok as necessary.
5. Add the onion and sauté until tender and starting to brown.
6. Add the sausage and carrot and cook until carrot reaches desired done-ness.
7. Add the bok choy and cook for a minute or two until it wilts.
8. Remove everything from the pot/wok and set aside.
9. Return the stock to the pot/wok, add the soy sauce and fish sauce, and bring to a boil. Add the noodles.
10. Make sure noodles are submerged in stock, then dump all the reserved items (shredded chicken, garlic, onion, sausage, carrot, and bok choy) in on top of them.
11. Once the noodles are soft enough to stir without breaking, stir everything together. Continue to cook until all the stock is absorbed.

12. Serve garnished with green onions and squeeze a little lime juice on top (or calamansi if you can find it). Yum!

This recipe is pretty flexible. You can include fish or seafood if that's your thing. (The original suggests half a pound of shrimp.) You can make it with pork instead of chicken if you want. You can use pre-made stock or make it from scratch. Change up the veg. Whatever you want!

The original recipe suggested using one small head of napa cabbage, but I didn't want to go out and buy more cabbage when I had a bunch of bok choy on hand, so I used that instead. Likewise, I didn't want to get a whole celery just to use the one rib called for in this dish, so I just added a few celery seeds to my stock and called it a day!

If you're starting with water and making your stock from scratch, you'll probably want to include a few more seasonings while boiling the chicken. (And also use skin-on, bone-in chicken.) I'd recommend adding a bay leaf or two and a few black peppercorns as well as a touch of extra salt for a start. Feel free to add in whatever else sounds tasty from there! Garlic, onion, parsley, cilantro? My stock just had salt, pepper, bay leaves, citrus (probably mandarin orange) juice, and pork (neck bones, ears, and belly) for its initial cooking and then the added chicken and celery seed today and it seemed to come out plenty tasty! I do think a bit of garlic (or even just garlic powder) in the stock would've been a nice touch though.

I really like how this turned out with the dark soy in the stock and the lime juice drizzled over it to serve. The hit of sourness from the lime is a really quite nice. I would be curious to try a variation that skips the lime and just adds a double quantity of toyomansi to the stock though. I would also love to try it with actual calamansi but, so far, I have been unable to find it here, so toyomansi is the closest I can get for now!

I love how flexible, delicious, and satisfying this dish is! It requires a fair amount of chopping but, other than that, is actually pretty easy. Now that I think about it, it occurs to me that most of the prep work could be eliminated if you're willing to use pre-made stock or broth and toss in a bag of coleslaw mix in place of the shredded cabbage/bok choy and carrot. Then all you need to do is mince the garlic and chop the onion and scallions (and sausage if you're using it). And, if you're not making the stock from scratch, you're free to throw in leftover chicken (or whatever other meat) instead of cooking it from raw. This could reasonably be made into a tasty, low-effort, weekday dinner!