I’m going to admit it right now, I cannot throw our bones. Some people horde records, some horde figurines, some horde shoes, some horde pets. What do I horde? Animal carcasses. When you look in my freezer you start to wonder if perhaps Jeffery Dahmer has taken up residence in my apartment. It’s crammed top to bottom with beef bones, lamb bones, ham bones, chicken carcasses, shrimp peels…and even (I did an inventory last night) a large bag of mushroom stems.

It sounds disgusting like that, but when you think of a steaming pot of homemade chicken soup on a chilly evening it starts to sound better. See, the bones of an animal are the first step towards meat stocks and I am a huge fan of making my own. I could go to the grocery store and buy a box of that fancy organic, free range, chicken stock that’s been shipped here all the way from California and was made from chickens who probably never even took advantage of their “free ranging” option, and most of all costs $3-$4 for 32 oz. I prefer to take the bones of a chicken that I have already purchased and some cheap root veggies and alliums and make well over 128 oz for the $2 investment in veggies and something that most others would simply throw away and waste.

Last week I made a couple of stocks. One was a Ham Stock that will be featured in a Wednesday night post about (I know, I’ve been promising this forever) ham, potato, and spring onion soup. The other stock was a Mushroom Stock made out of all the mushroom stems I saved when we did the shiitake mushroom wine pairing.

Because there are no bones in this stock it doesn’t have to simmer for as long as a traditional stock in which you are attempting to break down the collagen in order to extract the flavor. I simmered my mushroom stock for 2 hours and it turned a beautiful shade of mahogany that unfortunately couldn’t be shown in the picture because it made it very difficult to see the ingredients.

You can freeze the stock in 1 cup increments and it will last pretty much forever. I defrosted some of the stock last night to make a mushroom risotto that was incredibly tasty.

To make it I used ¾ cup of arboro rice, 1½ cups mushroom stock, ½ cup white wine (I used pinot grigio), 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 cloves garlic (minced), 1 shallot (thinly sliced), 1 cup sliced mushrooms (I used cremini), salt, ground black pepper, and 1 tablespoon Italian Herb Mix.

I added the olive oil to a large pan and cooked the garlic and shallot at medium heat until they were translucent. Then I added the mushrooms, salt, pepper, and the herb mix and cooked it until the mushrooms released their liquid. I added the rice at this point and stirred it until it completely covered in oil and juices. Then I began to add the mushroom stock ½ cup at a time, waiting until all the stock was absorbed before I added the next ½ cup. I added the wine last and cooked it until it had lost it’s alcoholic flavor. My rice was done at this point, but if it had needed more liquid I would have started adding water in ¼ cup increments until the rice was tender.

 

Next up: ham soup…I promise!