Since the early days of Prepped, we’ve had comment after comment from customers raving about our sauces – whether it’s the gravy that elevates Sunday’s roast chicken or a dreamy peppercorn sauce alongside a steak. The secret behind these great sauces? Our stocks! And as so often, there’s no magical secret tricks involved in making these – great results come from hard work combined with years of knowledge applied in the right way.
As well their unbeatable taste, our stocks are also good for you! Unlike mass-produced stocks and stock cubes, hand made stock is full of nutrients that boost and fortify your immune system, benefit your digestive system and fight inflammation. Find out more about the health benefits of real stocks, broths and bone broths here and here.
Many cultures have their variation of ‘chicken soup for the soul’ and the undoubted star of these is always the stock, with the other ingredients mere bit parts. Use a processed stock cube or stock powder and you will have to resign yourself to a mediocre soup; use your own hand-made stock (or ours!) along with the same ingredients and you’ll smell, taste and feel the difference.
Classic European cookery uses an array of stocks; light and dark meat stocks (where the bones are roasted off for the dark versions), vegetable stock and fish stock. Dark stock (fond brun) and vegetable stock are constants in the Prepped kitchen, with other variants making appearances as and when called for.
If you’ve never made stock before, there’s dozens of easy to follow recipes online and you’ll be able to see the common themes among them, as well as spot the differences – should you use a tiny drop of vinegar to help extract minerals from the bones more easily? Which vegetables should you use in your veg stock? Should you include chicken skin? Everyone makes their stock a different way, but if you follow the basic rule of using only quality ingredients from independent suppliers, you won’t go wrong.
And if it all feels like a bit too much faff, you can always rely on us to do the leg-work for you whilst you enjoy the end result!!
