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Recipe

Roasted Beef Bone Stock

current situation: beefy bone broth

A tall pot packed with rib bones and whole vegetables. Not chopped — whole carrots, halved onions with the skins on, entire heads of garlic, because over eight hours there is no advantage to dicing and the skins add colour.

Beef bones need far longer than chicken. Six hours is the minimum and twelve is better; the collagen in a beef rib is tougher and slower to give up than anything in a bird.

And they get roasted first, hard. That is not optional and it is not about convenience: unroasted beef bones make a pale, flat, slightly metallic stock that no amount of simmering rescues.

Makes
About 6 quarts
Hands-on
40 minutes
Roast
45 minutes at 450°F
Simmer
8–12 hours

A whole day on the stove and a night in the fridge. Make it when you are home anyway.

Beef bones and vegetables packed into the stockpotRoasted bones and vegetables for the second batch
Shot the night it was made. Open any picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The roast

  • 6 lb beef bones — ribs, marrow bones and knuckles together
  • 2 lb beef shin or oxtail, for flavour and body
  • 3 tbsp tomato paste
  • 4 onions, halved, skins on
  • 6 whole carrots
  • 1 head celery
  • 3 heads garlic, cut across

The pot

  • 2 cups red wine, to deglaze the roasting tray
  • 2 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 1 tbsp black peppercorns
  • 4 bay leaves
  • A bunch of parsley stalks
  • 8 quarts cold water

How it goes

  1. 1 — Roast the bones at 450°F for 35 minutes

    Spread in a single layer in a heavy tray, turned once. They should be properly dark brown, not tan. This is the colour of the finished stock.

  2. 2 — Tomato paste on in the last ten minutes

    Brushed over the bones and returned to the oven until it darkens. It adds depth and colour and tastes of nothing recognisable in the finished pot.

  3. 3 — Vegetables roasted alongside, skins on

    Whole onions, carrots, celery and garlic in the tray for the last twenty-five minutes. The onion skins give the stock its amber colour and cost nothing.

  4. 4 — Deglaze the roasting tray with wine

    Tray on the stove, wine in, scraped hard. Everything stuck to that metal is a third of the flavour and it would otherwise go in the sink.

    pro tip — If the tray has gone past brown to black in places, leave those bits. Burnt is bitter and it will poison eight quarts.

  5. 5 — Cold water, vinegar, and bring it up slowly

    Everything into the pot, covered with cold water, a splash of vinegar. Brought up over half an hour rather than blasted.

  6. 6 — Skim hard for the first half hour, then leave it

    Grey foam rises early and taking it off is the difference between clear and cloudy. After thirty minutes it stops and so should you.

  7. 7 — Eight to twelve hours at a tremble

    One bubble every second or two. Never a boil. Topped up if the bones ever show above the water.

  8. 8 — Strain, cool uncovered, chill, lift the fat

    Through a fine sieve, cooled to room temperature uncovered, then overnight in the fridge. In the morning it should be set firm with a cap of tallow on top. Lift it off and keep it.

Beefy bone broth. Freeze it in quart tubs and every soup you make for the next six months is better. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.