Pork Stock

When I decided to start cooking my way through The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, I wasn't looking for a project. I certainly have plenty to do. And I'm already a dedicated home cook. I cook all the time. But I was intrigued by how apparent Carol at French Laundry at Home and Julie of the Julie/Julia Project improved their culinary skills as they moved through the books they cooked their way through, The French Laundry Cookbook (Carol) and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 (Julie).


What I didn't know when I started, was how quickly it would happen. I'm only at the beginning, and I'm already looking at things in a very different way. I have developed what I call Zuni head. Zuni is with me in the market; it's with at the stove even when I'm not cooking a Zuni recipe; it's with me on the subway, where you can usually find me holding a copy of the book. Zuni is becoming part of me.

One of the reasons this is happening is because Judy Rodgers doesn't just give you recipes. She has delineated the principles she cooks by, the first of which is deciding what to cook:

The process of deciding what to cook should always begin with deciding where to shop and what to buy {or, if you are lucky, what to harvest}. Only then should you settle on the preparation, which should suit the qualities of those ingredients, as well as your experience, time frame, and equipment. I add a premium for choosing a dish that suits the weather. To assess and balance these things well is no mean accomplishment, and a good sense of what to buy and how to use it is not developed overnight. Such skills are, however a pleasure to acquire.

Judy Rodgers, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Page 30.

Rich Pork Stock

What I needed before I could make the next recipe I had my eye on was pork stock. At Zuni pork stock is made with a pig's head. However, for homemade pork stock I only needed half a pig's foot split since it has "a comparable combination of skin, cartilage, meat, and bone." Since you won't have the thrill of seeing a pig's head in this post, and I hate for you to feel deprived, go over to Carol's. Cool, right?

Back to me and my measly piece of a pig's foot. In addition to that I needed either some fresh pork shank or bone-in lean pork shoulder butt. (If you look at a diagram of a pig, you will see that pork shoulder and pork butt are the same.  Judy Rodgers calls it pork shoulder butt.)

Once again, I headed down to see Jeffrey, my butcher, because I knew he could help me with what I needed.  Jeffrey didn't have fresh pork shank, but he did have pork shoulder butt.

He also had the requisite pig's foot.

Notice the bones in the picture. Jeffrey sawed the bone he removed from the pork shoulder butt into three pieces so there would be more surface area,

I took this all home, and it was time for me to get to work.

The recipe for pork stock calls for chicken stock instead of water, which makes it a compound stock.

Compound stocks are meat and poultry stocks we make with meaty bones, scraps, and carcasses, browned and then moistened with our chicken stock or chicken stock plus water. Since it is flavorful and slightly gelatinous already, chicken stock gives these second-generation stocks a kick-start. They achieve lovely body in fewer hours, without overcooking the new flavors~beef, pork, lamb, rabbit, duck, squab, or other meats you might make into stock.

Judy Rodgers, The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Page 55.

The tea cup is just a reference for the size of the onion.

I ended up with two cups of beautiful pork stock when I was done to use with Mock Porchetta, which is up next.

Thanks to Sylvano, who held my place in the book for me.

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The Gold Standard

If you have armed yourself with a copy of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook and have done more than flip through the pages, you know that this book is not just an instruction manual with a lot of recipes, each with a list of ingredients followed by directions. It's actually a diary as well as an in-depth discussion of how Judy Rodgers cooks. It's as personal a cookbook as I've ever seen. Listen to what Michael Ruhlman, the apostle of making your own stock, has to say about it.

It was actually written by the chef herself and is thus a true reflection of her personality: eccentric, passionate, articulate, and most important, deeply observant about the way food behaves. This is a cookbook that’s truly valuable to read.

I'm rambling and feeling a little like Bilbo Baggins this morning, trying to decide where to begin. So I guess I'll just start at the beginning....

Meet Jeffrey Ruhalter of Jeffrey's Meat Market located in the historic Essex Street Market.  He is the real deal - a butcher, who can get you anything you need in the way of meat or poultry and can prepare it any way you want, all without having to take out a bank loan. Plus, he is without a doubt one of the nicest, friendliest people you will ever meet. 

Jeffrey Holding Thelma and Louise

There's no recipe for veal stock in Zuni. (If you want to make veal stock, go see Carol.) In The Elements of Cooking Michael Ruhlman reported that Judy Rodgers said she "hasn't found a good source for veal near her restaurant and so doesn't use veal stock."

Chicken stock is Zuni's basic stock. It's used for most of Zuni's soups, for meat and poultry braises, and for making compound meat stocks, which are other meat stocks that start with chicken stock instead of water. I'm going to need a lot of it. And that's why this is the beginning.

Zuni Chicken Stock

Whole birds - with their head and feet - are Judy Rodgers' first choice for making chicken stock. Before I met Jeffrey, I used to get my chickens for this stock in Chinatown, so if you don't have access to Jeffrey (or the Jeffrey of your hometown) but can get to an Asian market, that will probably be your best bet. If you can't get whole chickens, don't let it deter you from making this beautiful stock. You can add wings, necks, and feet, but Judy Rodgers cautions against using backs.

Thelma and Louise on Jeffrey's Counter

I've been making this stock regularly for a little over a year now, and I can testify that you want to have one cup increments of this stashed in your freezer to use at will.  This was the first time I doubled the recipe so I used a 20-quart stock pot. Unless you are lucky enough to have a BIG sink, prepare to wash this baby in the bathtub.

Thelma and Louise After a Bath

Ta da!

A Home Cook's Notes

Next time I won't double the recipe; I will use one chicken at a time instead of two as I did here. I don't mind making this recipe often - I love the way my house smells while this stock is simmering away, and I find making a single batch to be more manageable than a double batch.  The 20-quart stock pot was just too large for me to handle comfortably.

Sylvano 

The View Outside the Kitchen Window

So all in all, it was a good two days!