All right! We've got our ingredients ready. Now let's extract the flavor from our meat.

Here's one basic thing: if you have meat, you don't have to give your simmering pot quite as much attention. If you have bones, there are some random not-delicious things in the marrow (nothing dangerous, just not-delicious), so you'll want to either skim it frequently, or par-boil the bones and still wind up skimming a fair amount.

I par-boiled the bones this time. Put your bones in your pot, fill them up til a half-inch past the top bone with cold water straight from the tap, and bring them to a boil over high heat. Let them boil for 3-5 minutes.




All the gross foamy stuff that has floated to the top is not delicious, so dump the whole pot into your sink, rinse the bones off with warm water, and then wash the residue out of your pan.

What other sorts of foods do you par-boil?

less

All right! We've got our ingredients ready. Now let's extract the flavor from our meat.

Here's one basic thing: if you have meat, you don't have to give your simmering pot quite as much attention. If you have bones, there are some random not-delicious things in the marrow (nothing dangerous, just not-delicious), so you'll want to either skim it frequently, or par-boil the bones and still wind up skimming a fair amount.

I par-boiled the bones this time. Put your bones in your pot, fill them up til a half-inch past the top bone with cold water straight from the tap, and bring them to a boil over high heat. Let them boil for 3-5 minutes.




All the gross foamy stuff that has floated to the top is not delicious, so dump the whole pot into your sink, rinse the bones off with warm water, and then wash the residue out of your pan.

What other sorts of foods do you par-boil?

less

All right! We've got our ingredients ready. Now let's extract the flavor from our meat.

Here's one basic thing: if you have meat, you don't have to give your simmering pot quite as much attention. If you have bones, there are some random not-delicious things in the marrow (nothing dangerous, just not-delicious), so you'll want to either skim it frequently, or par-boil the bones and still wind up skimming a fair amount.

I par-boiled the bones this time. Put your bones in your pot, fill them up til a half-inch past the top bone with cold water straight from the tap, and bring them to a boil over high heat. Let them boil for 3-5 minutes.




All the gross foamy stuff that has floated to the top is not delicious, so dump the whole pot into your sink, rinse the bones off with warm water, and then wash the residue out of your pan.

What other sorts of foods do you par-boil?

less

All right! We've got our ingredients ready. Now let's extract the flavor from our meat.

Here's one basic thing: if you have meat, you don't have to give your simmering pot quite as much attention. If you have bones, there are some random not-delicious things in the marrow (nothing dangerous, just not-delicious), so you'll want to either skim it frequently, or par-boil the bones and still wind up skimming a fair amount.

I par-boiled the bones this time. Put your bones in your pot, fill them up til a half-inch past the top bone with cold water straight from the tap, and bring them to a boil over high heat. Let them boil for 3-5 minutes.




All the gross foamy stuff that has floated to the top is not delicious, so dump the whole pot into your sink, rinse the bones off with warm water, and then wash the residue out of your pan.

What other sorts of foods do you par-boil?

less

We've got everything ready---now let's get down to business! For the herbs and spices you don't want to eat, wrap them up in cheese cloth and tie the tip off with kitchen twine so you can take them out later. (You don't want to eat bay leaves, or anise stars or cinnamon bark, right?)Put your accompanying vegetables (mirepoix if you want to be Classic French about it), and your herbs/seasonings ( boquet garni for you Escoffier-lovers) into your pot.Then cover your vegetables and herbs with your bones or meat. In the stew, the order doesn't matter at all because you're going to serve straight from this dish. Because you're using meat and not bones, you won't have to do a bunch of skimming. For the pho, since you're using bones, you will be straining this broth after you make it and you'll be skimming as it simmers. You don't want the onions or boquet garni to float (that would get in the way of skimming) so try to anchor them at the bottom of the pot by plunking bones on top.Now fill the pot with cold water (or broth, for the stew---this is like making a double-rich broth. Peasants couldn't have done this, but since you're living in the Modern Era this rich flavor is a good way to show off how much you're not a peasant.) til about 2 inches above the ingredients.Now, put your pot on the stove and bring it to a simmer! less