Technique: How to make Shellfish Stock Cubes
How to make Shellfish Stock Cubes
Save freezer space by reducing your stock and freezing into handy cubes. Here’s how:
Method: Shellfish Stock Cubes
One of the priceless tips from Day 4 in the kitchen was this: freeze your stock into easy-to-store stock cubes. First, the stock is reduced to concentrate the flavour.
Here’s how
Make your stock (see below for details on how to make a Shellfish Stock).
Sieve the liquid from your stock.
Reduce the liquid by half.
Pour the reduced liquid into a ice cube tray.
Freeze.
Once frozen, remove from tray and store in the freezer in a bag.
Keep in Mind
This concept will work for all stocks.
Don’t reduce the stock with the shellfish and vegetable in it as it will turn bitter.
Reducing the stock (ie simmering it) removes the water. The more you reduce the more viscous and intense your stock will be.
How to make a Shellfish Stock
A home made shellfish stock brings a massive amount of flavour to a Langoustine Paella and its the perfect way to use the heads and claws of shellfish left over from the Langoustine, mango and avocado tartare.
Ingredients
makes 500ml / time: 2 hours
1kg langoustine heads and claws (or similar crustaceans)
2 onions
3 carrots
3 leeks
250g cherry tomatoes
1 orange (peel and juice)
olive oil
water
Let’s Begin
1. Langoustine heads and claws
Twist of the heads and claws from the langoustine, retaining the body to make another recipe.
2. Rinse
Give the heads and claws a quick rinse in cold water.
3. Roast
Place on a baking tray and roast in a hot oven (200°C/ 400 °F) for about 30 mins.
When roasted, bash the claws and heads into pieces.
4. Prep the Veg
While the heads and claws are roasting prep the veg.
Use your new found knife-skills (just for the sheer glory of it, because the presentation doesn’t matter one iota) to chop the onion, leeks, carrots.
Peel and juice the orange.
Let’s Begin
4. All into the stock pot.
Add some olive oil to a large stock pot, and sweat the veg and the orange peel for about 5-10 minutes.
Once your heads and claws are roasted and bashed up, add them in.
Next add the orange juice and the stock.
Simmer for 45 minutes.
5. Pass and Reduce.
After 45 minutes your stock should be an intense red, earthy colour.
Pass it through a sieve collecting the liquid in a clean pan.
If you want, you can stop here, you have a wonderful stock which is ready to use.
However, if you want to intensify and reduce the volume of the stock, simmer it again another 30-60 minutes until it is reduced by half.
As the stock reduces, water is evaporating, which is why the stock becomes more and more concentrated the longer you simmer it down.
6. Pour to Ice Cube Tray
Pour the reduced stock into an ice cube tray container and freeze.
7. Pop out to use
Next time you need some stock, pop your own flavour-bomb from the ice-cube tray and add into the recipe.
thank you!
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