Paella made with Stock from Rotisserie Chicken Leftovers

Another post from my cooking on a boat adventure. Paella is a great dish to cook for a large group, and I had borrowed a wonderful paella pan with dedicated burner. But what about stock? The stock is an important aspect of paella, which should be made from scratch rather than using bouillon cubes. Chicken stock and fish stock are obvious choices for paella, but where to get sufficient chicken or fish bones when on a boat trip?

The answer I came up with is that on the evening prior to cooking the paella, we prepared rotisserie chicken. After eating them, all the bones were collected in a big pot and those were used to make a stock. We also made shrimp stock from the heads and shells of the jumbo shrimp used for the paella, and used the cooking liquid from the mussels. A good cook never throws away something that still has flavor in it that can be used! Continue reading “Paella made with Stock from Rotisserie Chicken Leftovers”

Is a Pressure Cooker better for making Stock?

You may not believe this, but until recently I did not own a pressure cooker. I didn’t know much about pressure cookers and I never really saw the need for one. I knew a pressure cooker cooks at a higher temperature in a shorter time, but since I’m mostly interested in cooking at a lower temperature at a longer time (such as sous-vide), that doesn’t seem very appealing to me. After some of my gourmet friends told me that it really worked better for making stock, I decided to buy one. Of course the first thing to try it with was homemade stock. Is a pressure cooker really better for making stock? Time for another side-by-side experiment! Continue reading “Is a Pressure Cooker better for making Stock?”

Home-made Beef Gravy

When preparing meat and gravy, you always have to decide whether you want most of the taste to be in the meat or in the gravy.  It is very simple really: all the flavor that goes into the gravy, will go out of the meat. You can’t have both, unless you cheat a little by using other meat to flavor your gravy. And that’s exactly what this recipe is for, or for cases when you just want the gravy and don’t need the meat. Of course you can buy gravy in the store, but home-made is so much better and really … Continue reading Home-made Beef Gravy