Stock

This is my standard, multipurpose Asian chicken stock. Good-quality chickens are a premium ingredient, so make the most of your investment. Save and freeze chicken parts as you prepare other dishes. Every once in a while, especially when the freezer gets full, brew some stock. It freezes beautifully. And in a pinch, make the shortcut version from canned broth (see the Variation, below).

Beef broth has long been used as a healing beverage. Beef bones are filled with collagen and minerals the body uses to build connective tissues, such as calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. It’s a perfect sipping medium for people who are trying to figure out how to get five or six hits of nutrition a day. I’ve had clients with eating difficulties who have literally lived on this broth for days or weeks at a time.

This is my Rosetta stone of soup, a broth that can be transformed to meet a myriad nutritional needs, serving as everything from a delicious sipping tea to the powerful base for more hearty soups and stews. So no matter what a person’s appetite, it can provide a tremendous nutritional boost. Chemotherapy often saps your strength due to dehydration, which pulls vital nutrients out of your system. This rejuvenating liquid, chock-full of magnesium, potassium, and sodium, allows the body to refresh and restore itself. I think of it as a tonic, designed to keep you in tip-top shape.

Some people have soul sisters. I have a soup sister. Julie and I have one of those friendships where I can barge into her house uninvited and nine times out of ten I’ll find Julie in the kitchen making soup. She’s so good at it that when I return home from a long out-of-town job, the first place I call to make dinner reservations is her house. Last winter we were trying to come up with a hearty chicken broth recipe when we realized everything we needed for a foundation was already in the Magic Mineral Broth recipe (opposite page), with its rich color, aroma, and flavor and impressive nutritional profile. Here, we’ve enhanced Magic Mineral Broth by adding chicken bones, which infuse the soup with even more minerals, especially calcium and phosphorus, which, not surprisingly, are vital for bone health.

Miso is a nutritious, high-protein product fermented from soybeans and salt (or a combination of soybeans, grains, and salt). Available at all natural food stores and Asian groceries (as is the sea vegetable kombu), pungent-tasting miso is most commonly used to make simple broths. Here is a basic recipe, which really should be considered a soup in itself rather than as a stock for making other soups. Note that once the miso is stirred into water, it should not be boiled. Otherwise, its beneficial enzymes will be destroyed.

This broth may be used as an extra-flavorful soup stock or as an alternative, with a little extra kick, to Basic Vegetable Stock. It’s also a soothing remedy for the common cold!

This is a basic stock that may be used in place of water in most any vegetable soup to give added depth of flavor. It’s also a good way to use up vegetables that are limp or less than perfectly fresh.

Don’t throw away your chicken carcass or the package of giblets. Here’s a way of making a simple chicken stock (or broth—I use the terms interchangeably) that you’ll be using in all kinds of soups. This will produce only about 4 cups, so you may want to freeze the chicken elements until you have enough to make at least twice that amount.

Store-bought beef broth works just fine, but—just as with chicken broth—it simply doesn’t compare in taste to the homemade version. The trick with beef stock is to roast the bones first in order to achieve a nice caramelized flavor.

So why make your own broth? The main reason is that you’ll get a richness of flavor in your homemade stock that you just can’t buy at the store. Homemade broth has an intense chicken flavor and an unbeatable smell. While the thought of making your own broth may seem intimidating, we promise that it’s not! In fact, it requires little attention once all the ingredients hit the pot.

Making broth at home is so easy, and there’s not all that sodium and other who-knows-what-else in broth you make yourself.

Leftover dashi freezes well and can become a fast miso soup or used instead of water to poach vegetables or cook grains.

For the bones, select a combination of the following: chicken (necks, whole carcasses, wings, or feet), pork (any bone, shanks, necks, split feet, smoked hock, or ham bone), or beef (oxtail or any bones).

Gina: Homemade chicken stock is our way of adding a little extra love to any dish, from soup to stew to rice pilaf. And it’s so easy to make: We throw a whole bird (yeah, the whole thing) in the soup pot, along with plenty of aromatics, and let it simmer for a few hours. This gives our stock plenty of taste. For an even richer chicken flavor, add the carcass of a roasted chicken to the stock as you are cooking it.

Capon soup is an Italian holiday tradition, but I like to use at least a little capon every time I make stock. I buy a capon, cut it in pieces, and freeze the pieces separately. When I make chicken stock, I add a piece or two of the frozen capon. I also add some turkey wings when I make chicken stock—I think it adds richness of flavor. The tomato (or paste) adds a little color and balances the sweetness of the carrot.