The Fundamentals of Stocks and Broths

Soup season is finally here! While the weather is getting colder, stocks and broths warm our bellies and fill our souls.

Get started on your own classic stock this winter with help from this culinary insight and advice!

The following is an excerpt from Mastering Stocks and Broths by Rachael Mamane. It has been adapted for the web.

Stocks: The Fundamentals

At the highest level, classic culinary stocks can be categorized into four types: meat, poultry, fish, and vegetable. The French refer to stocks as the fond, or base, by which the foundation of a dish is developed. From here, technique determines the depth of flavor and color your stock will exhibit: The decision to blanch or roast bones, or sauté or roast vegetables, establishes the purpose of the stock in your final dishes—whether to be prominent or to blend in the background.

Types of Stocks

All stocks have the addition of mirepoix and other aromatics in common, which mellows the forward flavors of the main ingredient and brings a stock to a balanced state. As you become proficient with the technique, considering the purpose of the stock before making it will become an ingrained part of the process.

After a stock is made, you can adjust its clarity and concentration to achieve other fundamental states. We’ll review the main stock types below, as well as their derivatives, before digging deep into each category in subsequent chapters.