Clarifying Stock - with an egg raft

Name: Clarifying Stock - with an egg raft
Prep time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min

November 17, 2009

Prep 45 min Total 1 hr 5 min

Video Recipe - The stock I use in this recipe is made with roasted chicken thighs. The chickens are also divided and the vegetables are cookalong from the beginning. That’s the perfect recipe for a muddy and unclear stock. To be honest, I also forgot it for a while, so that it came to a full boil :-S Well actually, it was not really a problem no problem because this stock was meant to be used for a brown sauce. If I had needed a clear stock it would have been too bad. But fear not! It can be cleaned up with this method.

Ingredients

1 l/quart stock, cloudy
2 eggs
2 tsp water
½ tsp lemon (or vinegar)

Directions

Filter your stock as much as possible. There should be no solid residues in it. Like small pieces of meat, spices, skin, etc. Warm the stock slowly in a thick bottomed saucepan.

Beat the egg whites with water and the acid.

Crush the eggshells and whisk them into the egg mixture.

Mix the egg whites into the stock, turn up the heat and bring it all to a boil.

Turn down the heat when it boils and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Take the stock of the heat and let it cool for about fifteen minutes.

There should now be a raft of stiffened egg whites on top of the stock and the stock should be more clear.

Sieve the stock gently through a sieve lined with damp cheesecloth. If possible, use a sauce ladle to scoop it carefully into the sieve instead of pouring it. Avoid getting egg white with over the edge of the sieve.

Notes

The easiest way to get a clear stock is to avoid it being unclear to begin with. Tips:

Use raw pieces of meat. Unfortunately that is impossible when you make a dark stock so …
Don’t crack the bones.
Never let the stock boil. Only weak bubbles and simmering. Boiling emulsifies the fat from the meat and binds it to the water.
Only boil the vegetables along for the last hour. When the vegetables are soft, they begin to fall apart. This also makes the stock unclear.