[Sca-cooks] Aha! was Chicken broth

[A F Murphy]

I think this post has solved something that mystified me...

Now, trained chefs please bear with me, here... In Standard American
Non-professional Home Cook Usage (Can I copyright that phrase? I think
it will be useful, here) at least as I have encountered it, Brown=Beef
and White=Chicken. But I am gathering from this conversation that Brown
vs. White is a matter of technique, rather than ingredients, and that
you can make either with either. Am I the only person who had missed that?

Now a conversation we had months ago makes sense. Muirdach had spoken of
roasting bones for a brown stock, and I said that might have been what I
needed to do to rescue an insipid beef barley soup I'd made. Muirdach
explained that brown stock is normally used for sauce, rather than soup,
and Adamantius explained that in Standard etc....  we sometimes do use
it for soup - but even he didn't see what was confusing me. I thought I
was being told not to use beef stock in a beef barley soup... and
decided that Fine French Cooking was entirely too rarefied for me, and
dropped the conversation! Now I know I should have just Asked Questions
(TM S.leR.)

So. I like learning the professional terminology, because it is much
more precise that anything I am familiar with. Also, in this case, it
comes along with what is for me a new technique. I was happy a few
minutes ago to read the difference between stock and bouillon, because
that has confused me.. I did know that consommé is clarified, but I have
seen the phrases stock, broth, bouillon, and broth used interchangeably
(which I have known was incorrect), and I have seen varying definitions
used for them...

I think we *all* need to remember that we are not always using the same
terminology and  technique. And I guess we all need to ask questions if
someone says something that doesn't seem to make sense... it might be
just different use of a word, and it might be a real hole in someone's
knowledge.

Now - I still don't really know what I should do to improve that soup...
I'm going to try it again in a few weeks, when I have a bit of time
again. I've made a great chicken broth for years, but I've never really
made beef broth, as I don't tend to just happen to have a lot of beef
bones and meat hanging around, and most of my soups have been meatless.
(I make good vegetarian stock... most of my cooking that has taken me
beyond the Good Housekeeping Cookbook I first learned from has been
vegetarian, which explains some of the gaps in my knowledge... I'm not
all that experienced with cooking meat. But for 20 years I've cooked
meatless food I can serve to meat eaters without them fearing it as
*gasp* Vegetarianfood - it's just good soup or pasta and sauce or
risotto...  BTW, Margali, watch out - good dark vegetarian stock is
often made with dried mushrooms.)  I make a good mushroom barley soup...
but I still want to try that beef barley again.

Anne

Gorgeous Muiredach wrote:

>
> The classic recipe is to use beef consome, which is clarified white
> stock.
>
> Gorgeous Muiredach the Odd
>