You know, I am going to own up to something right here and right now: I utterly loathe and despise the toque, which is the proper name of the classic chef’s hat. Whether it is tall and straight sided with a bazillion pleats which mythically refer to the number of ways a proper chef knows how to prepare eggs, or the balloon-like mushroom cloud version, or especially if it is the idiotic floppy deflated-balloon version, I bloody well hate them all.

They are about the dumbest looking headgear known to humankind, and I know of very few people who look good in them.

The least objectionable ones of the lot are the tall, stiffly pleated ones like the one pictured above. Some chefs manage to look dignified while wearing those toques; however, some less fortunate persons look as if they have a tall cake perched upon their heads.

The balloon-like toques are universally ugly, I don’t care what anyone says. It looks like a fabric light bulb tucked on top of someone’s head.

And the floppy ones?

It is completely impossible to look like anything other than a goofball wearing one of those misbegotten wastes of fabric. The best one can hope for when wearing one is those is that no one will ever enter the kitchen and see you, at worst, even the most upright and handsome individual is turned into a chef from the shallow end of the gene pool. Besides, no one can take a cook or a chef seriously as a culinary professional while they have a lopsided deflated mushroom cloud on his head. Looking like a cartoon character does nothing to enhance one’s professional image.

If you watch a lot of celebrity chefs on television, or see photographs of them in newspapers and magazines, you will notice that very few of them wear the toque, even when cooking. Or, if they do wear them in the kitchen, they don’t let anyone take a photograph of them while they are so attired.

Take a look at photos of Marco Pierre White, Thomas Keller, Mario Batali, Gordon Ramsay and Eric Ripert. Do you see them wearing white monstrosities upon their heads? Not really often. Like, ever.

I wonder why that is?

Could it be because it doesn’t matter how good looking you are, or how trim the cut of your chef’s coat, you are doomed to dweebdom if you put a tall cylindrical white hat on your head?

Do you think?

I was forced to wear toques of a sort in culinary school–I say of a sort, because I don’t think that a disposable cylinder of white corrugated cardboard counts as a hat of any kind–and I hated them intensely. The faculty and staff did their best to instill in each of us a sense of pride in our uniforms, including the paper toques, telling us that we should walk with our heads up and shoulders back, because we were upholding a centuries old tradition that was sacred in its importance.

Right.

So, where did the tall toque hat come from? The story I was told in culinary school was that chefs long ago were, along with other learned persons, intellectuals and artisans, sometimes persecuted for being so smart and skilled. So as to save themselves from death, a number of them hid out with some Greek Orthodox priests. In order to not be noticed overmuch, they took to wearing the sacred vestments of these priests which included–you guessed it–really tall cylindrical hats. Now, the priests wore black, and so as to not offend God or the priests, the chefs took to wearing grey vestments and and hats.

Later, in the middle of the 19th century, great French chef Marie-Antoine Carême redesigned the chef’s uniform, making the hat and coat white to denote cleanliness.

When our chefs in school railed against the then current trend of chefs and cooks wearing chef’s jackets with baseball caps in the kitchen, saying that they should instead be wearing the traditional toque, because that was the mark of a chef, and besides baseball caps were designed for playing baseball, not cooking–well, I’d always wonder about what the toque was “designed” to do.

If the origin story is to be believed, it was designed to hide the identity of chefs in order that they might not be persecuted. They were not designed to be practical in the kitchen–if they really evolved from the traditional headgear of Greek Orthodox priests, the hat was meant to make them appear taller, so they could be seen easily from the back of a church, not to mention it gives them a look of otherworldliness.

Being as kitchens are nowhere near as big as churches and chefs have no need to cultivate the air of otherworldliness, what purpose does a toque serve, really?

Sure, it is supposed to keep hair out of food, but really, any number of other caps, scarves, hats and other headgear do that more efficiently. I find that a baker’s cap works perfectly for tucking hair up and out of the way. It also does something that most toques suck at–it absorbs sweat to keep it out of your eyes.

And, one is not doomed to utter gooberosity just by putting it on one’s head.

Bandannas work well, as do the reviled baseball caps–and all three of these head coverings do not tower over a cook’s head.

And frankly, in the close quarters of most kitchens, where there are low-hanging bits of equipment, pot racks and vent-hoods–and in the case of where I work, ceilings–a tall toque is really not practical at all.

So if the toque doesn’t really absorb sweat, and is in the way and looks utterly stupid, why in the world would any chef want to wear it?

Why, indeed.

It strikes me as really silly to cling to an ugly, uncomfortable, impractical bit of headgear as part of a chef’s uniform, just because of “tradition.” And if you look at a lot of the top chefs in the world, it seems that they agree with me, because I don’t see them wearing toques.

Of course, you notice they all wear chef’s jackets, though. That is because they are eminently practical pieces of clothing. Worn over a t-shirt, a double-breasted chef’s jacket not only looks dashing and trim (if it is well-tailored, that is) it puts a total of five or six (if they wear a bib apron) layers of cloth between the chef and the heat of the stove. If a cook or chef were to splatter hot grease upon his or her chest, or roux or a bit of boiling stock, the dangerous liquid would have to soak through all of that cloth to get to his or her skin and burn it. And, in the case of an ugly splash of sauce, the double-breasted jacket allows the chef to easily unbutton the jacket and rebutton it with a clean, new front presented to the world.

So you see, just because I argue against the use of the toque as a regular part of a chef’s uniform because it really isn’t practical, I am not completely thumbing my nose at tradition. I just happen to think that the jacket is a practical and handsome garment that I am proud to wear, while the toque–well, it just isn’t.

So, I don’t wear it.

Now that I have said all of this, I am sure someone is going to ask me what I cover my head with at work. That is a good question, since I have fairly long (down to my shoulders) hair.

Sometimes, I wear a plain black baker’s cap with all of my hair tucked under it. It goes perfectly with my black chef’s coat, black pants, black bistro apron and black Dansko clogs, while absorbing sweat, keeping my hair in control and looking mighty dashing to boot.

But the hat I wear most often at work is something that was never meant to be a chef’s hat at all. It looks basically like the prayer cap worn by Muslim men, called the “kufi.” The one I wear is from India, is grey-blue and instead of being plain, it is decorated heavily with black, gold and blue embroidery.

It absorbs sweat, it isn’t tall enough to get in the way, and it contains my hair.

All while looking really spiffy.

What more could I ask from a piece of kitchen headgear?

One of the best parts of working as a chef is coming up with dinner specials.

It can also be one of the worst parts of being a chef.

On the one hand, it is a creative process, and that is always a good thing. Chefs like to flex their culinary imaginations, they like to do new things, and off-menu specials are a chance to shine creatively. These specials can be spontaneous or planned, but in either case, they let cooks and chefs stretch their wings and soar a bit, especially when much of restaurant work is repetitive, exacting, and face it–not thrilling. (No, really, cutting a case of onions at a time is not thrilling, fun, or glamorous. Or, wiping down walls at the end of the shift. Nope, not thrilling.)

That is the good part.

The bad part is that it is hard for a chef (especially one who is new on the job, like I am) to predict exactly what diners will want on any given night. If you add into that equation bad winter weather and unpredictable business because of fluctuating town population (meaning, Ohio University is on Christmas break and much of Athens’ population has left town for the holiday) you come up with a situation that can be frustrating.

However, instead of being frustrated, a good chef will turn it all around and see it as a challenge that can not only be surmounted, but can work to her advantage by providing a crass course in “Diner Psychology 101.”

I am still learning how to predict what Salaam’s guests will like and what they will not like. It is an inexact science–predicting people’s tastes–but I intend to at least learn how to tune my instincts into the wavelength upon which the diners of Athens reside.

For example–the dish pictured above–Greek Shrimp and Feta Casserole–sounded moderately interesting to me, but not overly exciting. I read a description of it in a book, and chose to do it because I thought that I could do it in individual casserole dishes, and I could make it pretty, while keeping the food cost low, because we pretty much had everything we needed on hand. (A good chef is always aware of food cost. Always.)

But what is weird, is I never thought it would be that tasty. I mean, I didn’t think it would taste bad–not at all, but it wasn’t something that I thought would be very flavorful. The original recipe, in fact, was kind of bland sounding, so admittedly, I jazzed it up some, and added some fresh herbs and flavorings that the description and recipe I read didn’t have. But still–it went together so simply, I figured it might not be that great.

I was wrong.

Several guests, after eating the dish, told me that it was one of the best things they had eaten recently. One woman enthused about how infused it was with flavor, and how it all went together beautifully.

I made a mental note of this, and when I got home, I opened up my laptop, and in my notebook where I keep records on the specials I run, I made note of the enthusiasm with which the shrimp were met.

Now, I know to run that recipe–or a similar one–again. (I say recipe as if I wrote one, or followed one. This is not true–I read a description of the dish online, and said, “Huh. I can do that,” and then off the top of my head, made it. But that is okay–I remember how it went and can recreate it at will. That is the delight of simple recipes–they can all live in one’s head for years without having to be codified.)

And then, there is the case of the Persian Pomegranate Soup.

Hilarie and Mark, the owners of Salaam, wanted me to run the soup as a special as soon as they read my post on it. I finally got around to it this weekend–I made it yesterday, only to find that it was ordered by only two people–one of whom, admittedly loved it–she went out of her way to tell me so. She particularly praised the tenderness of the meatballs–they are tender, of course, because they are simmered gently in the soup broth without being browned in a pan first.

But, for some reason–whether it was the description I gave of it to our servers, or whether to many guests’ ears, the words “pomegranate” and “soup” do not belong in the same sentence together–I will never know–the special did not sell.

That can be a problem, of course, because if you make food that no one wants and you end up throwing it out–it raises your food cost.

Raising the food cost is A Very Bad Thing. (That last sentence, written in capital letters, in bold typeface, in neon glowing letters, underlined, in 30 point type, is emblazoned in my memory from culinary school and my experience in every professional kitchen. I now have it in my nature to never, under any circumstances waste food, even if it is at home for fear of RAISING THE FOOD COST! So, I am a little paranoid about that issue.)

No chef worth her salt will throw out perfectly good food just because some folks think they don’t like it. It is much better, and it keeps the dreaded food cost beastie under control, to change it into something else–this is called repurposing.

So, rather than come up with an entirely new special for tonight, or running a completely failed special from the night before, I took the soup and changed it into something else.

First, I strained the meatballs, rice and split peas out of the broth, and saved the meatballs, discarding the other solids. I added tomatoes, sauteed onions and garlic and chicken broth to the soup, and brought it to a simmer. I then formed and the rest of the raw meatball mix I had on hand so that I could add meatballs to the soup this afternoon–the meatballs are quite tender, and I was worried if I put too many in the soup at once, I would end up breaking them up as I ladled them up to serve them. I figured I could always make more fresh. These new meatballs were then joined by the old meatballs in the soup broth, so that the old ones could heat up. Once they were at temperature, I put them in a holding pan to keep them warm, and went to work on the broth.

I reduced it by one third, and added some sugar to balance the very tart pomegranate flavor. I added more tomatoes, and reseasoned it considerably. Then, I thickened it, and added a bit of butter and half-and-half to mellow it out, and finally threw in a blast of chile heat to further balance the sour notes of the original broth. (Building or, as in this case, rebuilding, a sauce is a balancing act. It is a teeter-totter of the senses, and in the case of this soup, the flavor profile was way overbalanced towards sour. Sugar is an obvious remedy–if you say to someone what is the opposite of sour, most folks will say sweet. Chile, however, while it isn’t exactly a taste so much as a sensation, also helps balance strong tastes like sour by giving the tongue something else to experience.)

Over the meatballs the silky-smooth sauce went, and the dish was now something different–Persian Sweet and Sour Meatballs. Served over rice, and garnished with a generous handful of pomegranate seeds and fresh herbs, it was excellent. The entire staff tried it and declared it better than the traditional soup, and lo and behold, the public agreed–and ordered it gladly.

So, while the pomegranate soup may never appear on our tables again, the similar,yet different, meatballs probably will. (Though I will go about making it next time without going the long way around by making soup first and then making a pot of tender meatballs with kickass sauce. I’ll just make it straight up, with no forays into soupdom.)

It is a balancing act–pleasing the palates of people you have not met yet.

I guess it might help if I were psychic.

Maybe I should read Tarot cards before coming up with my dinner specials. It might help.

(Now that I think on it, card or palm reading would fit in with all the bellydance, Silk Road ambiance and exoticism that Salaam has to offer. Maybe I should mention it to Hilarie. Or not. Nope. Not. Definately not. A card reader would take a valuable table, and we’d have to feed him or her, which would raise the food cost….but it is still a kind of funny thought. But then, I am easily amused.)

The special this week I was most worried about turned out to be quite popular indeed.

I made a very modified version of my Chicken Vindaloo with Mango that included coconut milk–a somewhat traditional variation on my usual way of making it, and I was worried it would be too spicy with chile or mustard heat for our guests. Now, granted, I cut back on the chilies from my usual amount, but I didn’t skimp on the mustard seeds, ginger, garlic, cumin, tamarind or anything else. There was plenty of all the good stuff in there–and the result, even with the creamy coconut milk chilling it all out, was still spicy enough to make a carnival in the mouth.

So, I was a bit apprehensive about it.

I shouldn’t have been. The staff loved it, and apparently this love carried over in the servers’ descriptions of the dish, because it went quite fast both last night and tonight, and not one person complained of the spice level.

It just goes to show that you cannot predict how diners will react to any given flavor combination, dish, ingredient or description of same.

You just have to keep at it: consistently put out great food, build up a trust between the kitchen and the diners, and if a dish fails–analyze it, then repurpose it into something which has more likelihood of success.

Lest the dreaded dragon of high food cost be awakened to rampage through the pantry, kitchen and dining room.

And in the midst of all that–remember to keep it fun and love what you are doing.

Because that good attitude, generosity and sense of fun come across in your food, and can make all the difference in the world.

These noodles did not originate in Singapore.

Or, at least, that is what I am told. They are Cantonese in origin, possibly from Hong Kong, and they were first very popular in European Chinese restaurants. They made it to the US sometime in the 1980’s and spread through the Chinese-American restaurants to the point where they are now fairly standard menu items.

But, they probably didn’t come from Singapore, where admittedly, there are many Chinese of southern heritage, and where stir-fried rice noodles are a ubiquitous street food.

So, why are they called “Singapore Rice Noodles?” Well, as near as I can figure there are two reasons behind it. One, is because it sounds exotic, and anyone who has worked in a Chinese-American restaurant can tell you that exotic sounding names sell plates of food. Servers can tell you that, as can chefs and owners who make up these names–people just really like stuff that sounds like it came from a far-away, interesting place.

The second reason has to do with one of the primary seasoning ingredients: curry powder.

Curries are popular in Singapore, it being along the trade route between India and China, so the logic in naming the noodles probably had something to do with the use of curry powder in the dish. Even though the curries of Singapore use other ingredients besides curry powder in them–curry was apparently curry to the cook who named this rice vermicelli stir fry.

The truth is, I don’t really give a darned about why these delectable noodles are named after Singapore. The ironic thing about this dish is that while it wasn’t originally from Singapore, it was a Singaporan Chinese culinary arts student named NeeWee who got me addicted to eating it. NeeWee said himself that he knew they didn’t come from Singapore, but he didn’t really care–they tasted so good he was happy to claim them as authentic Singaporan cuisine. Besides, as he said, he was Chinese, and they were certainly Chinese, so they were part of his heritage anyway, so he might as well enjoy them every chance he got.

And enjoy them he, and then later, I, did. Once he got me to taste them, there was no going back. I crave the little saffron-colored strands of chewy-soft noodles which have lightly crisped on the edges like a horse craves clover. Sprinkled among the tangled nest of noodles like jewels in a jackdaw’s nest lay morsels of Cantonese roast pork, shreds of onion, scallion top, and sweet pepper, silvery bean sprouts and tiny curled pink shrimp. At our request, shreds of chili pepper would join these sweeter flavors, along with the hot chili oil with seed we would drizzle over the serving platter with abandon, bringing a fire to our tongues and a light to our eyes.

Neewee, myself and our friends had a lot of fun sharing platters of Singapore Rice Noodles; we’d go out to a favorite Chinese restaurant after class and gulp down platters of them, and guzzle pot after pot of tea while we laughed over the events of our day, talking culinary triumph and disaster, and arguing philosophy and food. It is because of Neewee that I eventually had to learn how to make these delicious noodles–here in Athens, there is no place I can go to get a decent plate of them otherwise.

I have, of course, made a few modifications, and I do so with no feelings of guilt or sense that I am violating a traditional recipe. For one thing, I have eaten Singapore Rice Noodles at enough restaurants to know that there is no singe standard recipe. The only constants seem to be rice vermicelli, curry powder, onion slices, red or green bell pepper slices, bean sprouts, and possibly shrimp. I have eaten menu versions which have had or lacked roast pork, chicken, scrambled egg, chile peppers, carrots, mushrooms, scallions and chile peppers. That is a pretty wide variation in ingredients–wide enough that to me, it means there is no one traditional recipe by which this dish is known, which can be held up as the standard of authenticity.

So, I feel no great angst over adding more vegetables to my version and using, instead of shrimp, and in addition to my own roast pork, Chinese lop cheong–sweet pork sausages. Zak doesn’t much care for stir fried shrimp, so I figured the sweet flavor of the air dried lop cheong would make a good substitute, as I find tiny shrimp to have a very sweet taste as well. (When I asked for the lop cheong at the local Asian market, I got teased by the owners for using Cantonese pronunciation instead of Mandarin. Ah, well. That is what I get for learning my Chinese by watching too many Hong Kong movies–Cantonese pronunciation.)

I also did experiment with one change which I suspect rendered the dish no longer Singapore Rice Noodles, but instead something along the lines of “Stir Fry Curry Noodles.” I used Guilin rice noodles–which look like rice spaghetti–instead of the traditional hair-fine rice vermicelli. These thicker noodles, pictured as they came out of the package here, made a very different dish–the noodles were not mushy, but were soupier, with a slippery texture–this is in large part because I added more liquid than was necessary to the wok to cook them. As the noodles cooled in our bowls while we ate them, they became more chewy and reminiscent of the proper texture of Singapore Rice Noodles, but they still were not what I considered right and proper.

It was tasty, but not properly what I would call Singapore Rice Noodles.

A word of warning, before we delve into the recipe. If you look at recipes for this dish in cookbooks and especially online, they usually counsel you to use way more liquid than is necessary to cook the noodles in the wok. The essence of this recipe is a balance between heat and liquid–too much heat and not enough liquid, and you will get oddly plastic-like too chewy noodles. Too little heat and too much liquid, and you will get slippery, soft and somewhat soupy noodles instead of properly chew-soft stir fried noodles.

It is a difficult balancing act to pull off, but in my recipe, I advocate the use of much less liquid than any other recipe I have found. However, when cooking with rice vermicelli, I have found that less is more–the amount of liquid I used was just enough to carry the curry powder flavor into the noodles and infuse them with the saffron color of turmeric. This softens the already soaked noodles just enough to soak up the flavors of the wok without making them slippery soft and overcooked.

The vegetables and meats you use are up to you. The ones listed are just the ones I happened to use this time around. If you are a vegetarian, substitute some pressed spiced tofu or some smoked tofu (or both) for the meats, and add some soaked Chinese black mushrooms to the mixture as well for their meaty texture and flavor. Use either vegetable broth or the soaking liquid from the mushrooms for the chicken broth. If you are a vegan, follow my suggestions for the vegetarians and just leave out the eggs.

However you make Singapore Rice Noodles, just remember to use rice vermicelli and plenty of good-tasting curry powder. The one I use is a combination of Penzey’s sweet curry powder and hot curry powder. (That mixture tastes really good in scrambled eggs and deviled eggs, too, though I never make curry with it at all.)

Please don’t be put of by the long ingredient list. That is mostly because I like lots of vegetables in my noodles. You don’t have to use so many as that. But if all the cutting doesn’t frighten you, try it my way, especially now when summer produce is at its height. I don’t think you will be sorry.

Singapore Rice Noodles

Serve steaming hot from the wok, but be aware that this is really good as cold leftovers from the fridge. I like them that way for breakfast or lunch, though I bet they would be good folded into an omelet, too.

Amy, of Cooking With Amy ranted a wee bit about how she cannot abide picky eaters.

Her post brought forth an amen and a hallelujah from my “amen corner” here, because if there is a human behavior that works my very last nerve, it is food controlling behavior that impinges on the ability for other people to enjoy their own dinners, or otherwise interact socially with the food-controlling individual.

And the thing is–I try really hard to be tolerant of people. I really do. If I know that someone really hates a particular food, I will refrain from cooking it for them. I have already written about how, as a host, I do take into account people’s real food allergies and religious proscriptions against certain foods. I am respectful of health restrictions, because they involve keeping the diners alive (food allergies are not to be trifled with), and my own personal honor is such that I must respect people’s food restrictions that are based on their religious beliefs, because to not do so is for me to put myself between them and their view of God. And that is not my place, nor, really, anyone else’s place. So, that is all good.

But what about people who just have a list of foods they don’t like because they are “icky?” What about people who refuse to eat large categories of foods for no real reason except that they had some traumatic food incident in childhood that has left them permanently scarred? Or, they just don’t like the taste of most foods? Or, they are food controlling because it makes them the center of attention?

I, like Amy, just don’t have patience with these folks. Though, I must make a caveat here–when I say I don’t have patience with picky eaters, please understand I am talking about ADULTS, not kids. I cut kids slack because they go through developmental phases where they are picky, and nearly every kid goes through a stage where they don’t like this or that sort of food. (And that which they like and dislike often changes from day to day, much to the eternal frustration of their parents and caregivers.)

What I object to are adults who act like kids.

And my attitude toward such adults is this–grow up and get over yourself. Or, shut up when we are at the table. Or, get therapy, because you really need it. Or, I just don’t interact with them, because the rise in my blood pressure as I watch them harry waitstaff or when they whimper about this or that food and how they won’t eat it while I am trying to cook is just not worth it.

What is funny about this is that I am married to a man who used to hardly eat anything. Zak used to eat meat, potatoes, a handful of vegetables, pasta, rice, bread and the holy of holies–cold breakfast cereal. I am told by his parents that he used to live on sugar cereal virtually alone, and that there were years when he would eat it for two out of three meals a day.

Well, when I met him, he had just come back from Italy where he had his first culinary epiphany when he tasted pesto for the first time. (This was back before pesto had come to the US and taken over the culinary scene to the point where it became ubiquitous. At this point, in the early 90’s, he was astonished that I even knew what it was.) So, he had tasted truly great food in Italy and in the rest of Europe, and had started loosening up his own food neuroses.

But he credits moving in with me as being a turning point in his life as an eater. Apparently, my indomitable will in the kitchen broke him of being a picky eater, because I flatly refused to cater to his whims and limit my cooking to what I knew he liked. I just flat out refused, and cooked and ate whatever I had a mind to. If he didn’t like it, he could always eat cereal, and there were times when he did. But, over the years, his tastes changed to the point where he is quite the epicure now, and actually can discuss things culinary with me without either his eyes glazing over or saying, “huh?” at my every sentence.

Not only has his palate developed, so has his culinary vocabulary.

I do that with a lot of people. I cook stuff that they supposedly don’t like–often unknowingly, but sometimes on purpose, and damned if they don’t love it when I make it! I have had many a friend tell me, “I hate tofu, but the way you cooked it was awesome.” Or, “I always thought eggplant was nasty until you made that miso-glazed grilled stuff. That was so good.”

But some people defeat my kitchen super-powers, and are simply too whiney or neurotic to even try whatever it is I make for them, and it is these folks who bug the crap out of me. I guess because they aren’t even willing to meet me halfway and try something new. They just want to complain.

Strangely enough, quite a few culinary arts students are that way. I met more picky people in culinary school than anywhere else I have been. It seemed as if young food-controlling people flocked to culinary college, though, why, I have no idea, since most of the chefs delighted in torturing them by insisting that they try all of these scary new foods.Personally, I cannot get why someone would aspire to be a chef and yet refuse to eat vegetables. It seems rather–well, like an aspiring race car driver who won’t drive to work or something. It is just weird.

Folks like that try my patience, and tend to make me cranky, leading to rants like this one.

I guess it bugs me because extremly picky eaters tend to be narcissistic–they are so self-absorbed in their food controlling behaviors, they are either unaware of how annoying they are to those around them, or they just flat out don’t care. (Remember, I am talking about really picky eaters here, not just someone who doesn’t like okra because it is slimy and canned peas because they are olive green and mushy. I am talking about people who will not eat whole categories of food for no logical or sensible reason, and who make a big deal about it.)

That kind of self-centered behavior is extremely immature and childish, and I think that is the crux of the issue for me–I am not good at dealing with adults who act like spoiled little kids.

So, Amy–know this–you are not the only one out there who dislikes picky people. I’m the same exact way.

This post contains photographs of a graphic nature. If you are too squeamish to want to look at where your food comes from, if you cannot abide meat that looks like it came from an animal, then stop reading, move along and don’t look any further, because some of these photographs depict in graphic detail, various body parts of chickens, and the sight is not pretty.

Cue the Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

You know the one I mean.

Because I have an epic tale to tell. One that is almost (but not quite) as epic as one of Sergio Leone’s classic films.

The tale of making chicken stock, and it is a tale that is full of the good.

Yes, as you can see, the results are good, beautiful and pure: rich, golden, fat-flecked, full-bodied stock that is nothing more or less than the essence of chicken brought forth from the most humble of origins into glory.

But this tale is not all love and beauty, sweetness and light. There is a villain in this tale, which is right and proper, because all the best stories cry out for an antogonist. So, here, also, I will tell you of the bad.

Observe the low criminal forhead and shifting, beady eyes. This cat is up to no good, and in fact, in his self-serving quest for tidbits of chicken, he nearly caused countless kitchen disasters as Morganna and I labored mightily to bring forth the wonderous and nourishing chicken stock.

Ah, but yes, even though there is a villain, he is not the source of all of the ugliness in our story. Oh, no. For, indeed, chicken stock, though it does turn out to be clear, golden and pure, comes from a source which is not only humble but distinctly unattractive. In fact, for some people, the stuff from whence good chicken stock is made is a source of horror and disgust, and they turn their heads away and deny the truth of the viscerally ugly parts of life.

But not me. I am here to tell you all about the ugly, too.

Yes, that photograph does indeed contain what it looks like it contains: a severed chicken foot, after it has been simmered for eleven hours in a pot mixed with many others of its fellows, as well as numerous backs, necks, and an entire poultry charnel house worth of bones, which have been collecting in my freezer over the past year.

But I get ahead of myself.

You see, Saturday, I decided I needed to clean out my freezers, and use up what I could so that I could then turn around and fill said freezers with food I had prepared with an eye toward having plenty of Barbara-made (not government issue) MREs for my personal troops while I recovered from giving birth to Kat.

So, I did just that. Okay, in truth, I cleaned them out Friday afternoon and stuck the resulting concatenation of chicken bones, backs, necks, feet and whole chicken carcasses in my upstairs refrigerator to thaw overnight so that I could do the magical ritual the next morning that turns that whole mess of flesh, blood and bone into a liquid so pure and well-flavored it is like drinking a healing cup of sunlight.

In telling you this tale, I am also writing down instructions on how to go about making French-style white chicken stock in your own home. I hesitate to call this a recipe, because no amounts for the ingredients are given. It all depends on how many chicken bones you have collected and how long you want to simmer them. But, I do guarantee that if you follow these directions, you will make a fine pot of chicken stock which you can then freeze and hoard like gold in your kitchen, or use it profligately until it is spent, kissing all of your cookery with the distinctive essence of our most beloved barnyard fowl.

Chicken Stock: The Fundamentals

Stock comes from bones.

Meat gives it flavor and depth, so it is wise to leave some of it on the bones that you use, but the true essential qualities of stock–its fragrance, richness, and its body–not to mention its healing properties–come from bones. Actually, it comes from the marrow of the bones, which is the spongey matter inside the hard calcified matrix of the bones, from which arises blood and bone cells, and from the connective tissues that hold the bones together.

It comes from all of those ugly but necessary things that reside within animals and our bodies that we never think of–our skeleton. The fluid of life comes from what is, in our culture, the symbol of death, because of course, in normal circumstances, we do not see bones on living persons or creatures. We only see them after death. Until then, they lay hidden deep within us, giving our bodies structure and strength, giving us the ability to walk upright and not fall into puddles of undifferentiated flesh.

To make stock, one must set aside squeamishness and fear. One must learn to look critically at the various body parts of chickens most Americans do not really think about or gaze upon, and one must handle them. Like touch them, and stuff. And one must do this without remorse–for indeed, the chickens involved are certainly no longer using them! But, if one is without remorse, one should handle the bones of chickens with respect and understanding that they did indeed give their lives so that we could eat and enjoy them.

I see the frugal nature of making stock–which is essentially taking what many people consider to be a waste product–to be a highly respectful action toward the chicken–because I am putting to use that which would otherwise be buried in a landfill, or worse, ground up and fed to some other animal who is not necessarily a carnivore.

So, the fundamental ingredient of chicken stock is chicken bones. Where does one get them? (Other than from dead chickens….)

Mine are all from local farmers, most specifically from two local Athens area farmers who raise free-range birds, some of them heritage breeds, for the local market.. I buy whole chickens and bone-in chicken parts all through the year, and when I am finished with the bones, I stick them in the freezer, cooked or not. One farmer with whom I am particularly close also gives me chicken backs, necks and feet–parts that he has the slaughterhouse throw away.

Chinese markets also will sell you chicken feet and necks (because Chinese folks know what goodness resides within those chicken parts and love to use them for soup as well as to eat), as will a reputable butcher. You might try asking at the regular grocery store, -if- they have a real meat department with real meat cutters and butchers on staff, but most of them won’t these days. But, if you live in a reasonable sized city, rest assured, you will be able to find some chicken feet and necks, and quite possibly some backs.

These normally wasted parts of a chicken make an already good chicken stock excellent, especially the feet.

Why the feet?

Well, because they are filled with a lot of connective tissue made of collagen and small, fragile bones filled with gelatin. These two ingredients give stock a quality of richness and body. When a stock made with plenty of chicken feet in it is cooled, it thickens into a gel–almost a consumee. When such a stock is hot, it has a feel on the tongue that is like velvet, and it makes superior soups, gravies and sauces, because as it reduces it thickens and that velvety mouthfeel intensifies along with the flavor.

Before using your bones, you should rinse them off and make sure they are good and clean, especially parts that are normally thrown away, like feet and backs. The slaughterhouse they came from may not be very assiduous in keeping such parts as clean as they might, so it behooves you to give them a nice going over under cold running water. Trim away excessive bits of fat, but not all of it–fat is where flavor resides after all–and remove excessive hunks of skin, because it doesn’t really add much to the stock but excess fat. (If you have dogs, as I do, they appeciate a snack of skin and fat.)

Then, you toss your bones in the pot atop a layer of vegetables, and perhaps the body of a whole chicken that you are cooking along with the stock for extra flavor, and so you can have some good chicken soup, or pot pie, or chicken and noodles for dinner after all is said and done. (If you use a whole chicken, do not add the giblets–the gizzard, the liver and the heart. They make stocks bitter, so leave them out. Cook them separately, save them in the freezer or feed them to your dog or cat.)

What vegetables?

In the French tradition, one uses carrot, celery, onion and leeks, and sometimes, but not often, parsnips. One need not peel these vegetables, but one should scrub them heartily, and cut them into managable sizes to go with the side of your stockpot. (I have a 20 quart stockpot and a thirty quart canning pot, so I don’t do much more than cut leeks and onions in half and long carrots in half if I must.) I don’t use celery, but instead throw a tablespoon or so of celery seed into the pot, which gives the same flavor without me having to buy celery especially for stock. Since I strain my stock anyway, I needn’t worry about the seeds clouding it up and making little dirty looking flecks in the finished product.

Use yellow onions, and leave the skins on–wash them well in cold water first, of course, and cut off the root ends. But leave the skins on, for they give chicken stock that golden delicious color that it has. Do not be fooled by yellow-skinned hens–Tyson’s feeds their chickens calendula petals to color their skin and feet naturally yellow. (The things you find out in culinary school are amazing–and most of the good stuff comes as asides from the chefs and professors, like this bit about Tyson, chicken skin and flowers.) Otherwise, these parts would be pink or white. The calendula, also known as pot marigold, have a natural dye in them that colors the birds skins, and gives them appearance of being rich and fatty (chicken fat is naturally yellow.) They aren’t. Yellow skinned birds are no better than white skinned or the rare black skinned birds. They just are wearing cosmetics is all.

The fat of a chicken will color the stock gold, but yellow onion skins are a traditional addition to make the stock even more pretty. It does no harm, and in fact, makes the stock as pretty as you see in the first photograph of this post, so please, go ahead and leave the skins on.

If one uses leeks, as I did, one must cut them lengthwise in half, and cut them crosswise in half, and then separate out all of the layered bits of their flesh and soak them in a sink full of cold water, swishing them around to get all of the dirt and grit out. Lift them from the water, drain the sink, and repeat this process at least three times, always lifting the leek bits from the water, to allow the grit to fall to the bottom of the sink and go down the drain.

Parsnips add extra sweetness to the stock, which is why they are not classically used, unless one is making a specific soup from the stock, or one is making a regional variant on plain chicken stock. Treat them just like carrots, giving them a scrub, and throwing them in whole, or in halves.

The herbs one uses are thus: rosemary, bay leaf, thyme, parsley and sometimes sage. One usually ties them up in a bag of cheesecloth, along with about a teaspoon of whole peppercorns, before lowering them into the pot. This keeps herb bits from floating away and clouding up the stock, but if you take the time to strain your stock after it is cooked, one need not worry about tying up ones herbs in the first place. I prefer using fresh herbs, but dried ones will do.

I add salt right away to the stock, because it helps dissolve the flavoring elements into the liquid, and because I believe in seasoning from the beginning of a recipe. But, I add it with a judicious hand, knowing that the stock will simmer uncovered for a very long time and the flavors will concentrate as the liquid reduces, so I am careful not to just pour handsful of salt over the bones and chicken carcasses.

I also add a judicious amount of dry white wine at the beginning, pouring it over the bones. For this stock-making day, I used a full bottle of dry Riesling, split between the two pots.

After all of that is in the pot, one adds water.

Cold water.

Always start your stock with cold water, for several reasons.

One, it is more efficient to dissolve the gelatin in bones gradually with cold water slowly brought to a simmer. This extracts the full amount of the gelatin, whereas starting with hot tap water does not. Two, it results in a clearer stock, because heating the bones and flesh up gradually results in less of a release of fats, blood and other impurities (more about this later) into the liquid.Three, you are less likely to end up overheating your stock to a rolling boil, which you -must not- do, because it results in a cloudy stock that will never clear up, because all of the impurities get roiled around in the liquid and will refuse to float to the surface where they can submit to being skimmed and discarded.

Skimming the Scum

There is Morganna, diligently skimming the accumulated scum that floats to the top of the slowly warming stockpot as blood and other impurities are driven from the bones and flesh of the birds by the gradually heated water. This is a most important step. If you let all that nasty-looking scum stay in your stock, you will end up with a disreputable-looking pot of dirty dishwater that smells and tastes bitter. If you let your stock boil at this time (watch the fire and the stockpot like a hawk, and keep turning the flame down as the pot heats until it is on as low as it will go and keep the pot gently bubbling), you will end up with stock that is inedible and gross. Why bother with that? No one wants to eat or drink dishwater, so when the foamy scum slides to the top of the pot, skim it off, and pour it down the sink. Not even cats or dogs much like this stuff–it really is icky.

I remember being in stocks and sauces class–the first class of culinary school, and hearing Chef Aukstolis, a great bear of a man, bellowing, as he marched past the row of cauldron-like steam kettles (one could cook a person in them, they were so large), “Skim the scum! Skim the scum, or your stock will suck.” He would pause and then say, “And say it with me!”

And we would all join in the chorus of his mantra, no matter where we were or what we were doing. We would recite with him, “If your stock sucks, your sauce will suck!”

Truer words were never bellowed.

So there you are. Skim that scum, often and well, in the early part of stockmaking.

You will likely have to do this three or four times after the stockpot comes to a good bubbly simmer. After that, the nastiness will have been purged from the bones, and you can relax, leave the top off the pot and just watch that it doesn’t boil.

At this point in the stock-making one can sit back, and just let the fire, the water and the bones do their magic. Let them simmer. Keep an eye out that they do not boil, and if a stray bit of scumminess floats to the top, skim it off and toss it out, but for the next oh, six to twelve hours or so–depending on how long you want to stay in the house and go back and forth and watch the stockpot, you can just let it go on its merry way while you enjoy the rich aromas that will begin to pour forth from the pot and scent your home with the savory, comforting fragrance of Grandma’s best chicken soup.

Finishing the Stock: Picking Meat and Straining

We are in the home stretch now.

We are also at the part of our tale where The Bad Guy arrives. I shouldn’t say arrives–Ozy was in the kitchen the entire time the stockpots bubbled, drawn by the irresistable smell of cooking chicken. However, he did become most active during this stage of the stock-making process. Ozy is our oldest cat and to say that he is pushy is an understatement. When it comes to chicken, he is a master of putting himself right in the line of fire, just on the off chance he might trip up an unwary cook and they might drop a tidbit or two on the floor, where he pounces upon it and gobbles it up with a speed that belies his age and infirmity.

He is a right bastard about it, a bandit of the old school, and is as wily as a certain cartoon coyote, but is much more successful at getting dinner than his celluloid brother.

Needless to say, the operations I am going to describe to you go more smoothly if you do not have an irritating cat (or dog) underfoot.

When you have determined that your stock tastes as strong as you want it, or you are ready to go to bed, whichever comes first, it is time to strain the stock, pick the meat from the bones (if you want to) and discard the leavings, which are, at this point, a hideous mess of ugliness.

I cooked this batch of stock for close to twelve hours, and ended up with a very rich result.

To strain the stock, line a fine chinoise or mesh strainer with two to four layers of cheesecloth as shown in the photograph above, and set it over a clean pot that will fit into your refrigerator. I am lucky in that I had a completely empty fridge in which to put all twenty four quarts of stock I made on Saturday–if you are not so fortunate, make smaller amounts of stock! Then, ladle out the stock from the cooking pot into the holding pot. Do not try to pour from one to the other–you are likely to make a mess that way.

As you get down into the bones and mess of vegetables and possibly your whole chicken carcass, and you cannot easily ladle out the stock, use tongs to lift out the solid leavings,set them aside on a plate, and if you want, pick out the meat from the bones. (Of course, I did this, and saved the meat. I have since used the very flavorful flesh (and stock) in chicken and noodles and jambalaya, and plan to make chicken pot pie with it later this week.)

You can lay these bones and vegetables onto layers of cheesecloth, and when they are cool enough to handle, you can wrap them in the cheesecloth, hold them over your strainer, and squeeze out any remaining liquid, in order to extract every bit of goodness left in the ugly leavings. After that, I always triple bag them and throw them away or bury them in a compost heap, because chicken bones are very dangerous to feed to dogs. As much as my pooches would love them, they shatter into needle-sharp shards easily and could puncture their esophogi and that is never a good thing.

At this point, you simply cover the strained stock with a lid, chill it down in a sink of ice water and then put it in the fridge, and allow it to cool and congeal overnight.

In the morning, when you check on it, you will see solidified fat floating in a layer over the top of gelatinized golden stock.

It is simple to use an ordinary spoon to skim off as much fat as you like from the surface of the stock, and then stir in what is left. I like to leave a good bit of fat in the stock, because it adds a great amount of flavor. But, you don’t want to leave all of it, because it will make your stock have a greasy mouthfeel that will also make your soups, sauces and gravies suck. (Remember, if your stock sucks, your sauce will suck. Say it with me.)

At this point, all that is left is for you to ladle the cold stock into containers, label them, and stick them in the freezer. I like to freeze it in one quart containers. Remember to leave headroom, as liquids expand when they freeze.

It is also a simple trick to freeze some into ice cube trays, then pop them out into ziplock bags afterwards in order to use these two tablespoon amounts in small batches of pan sauces, or in stir-fries where a tiny amount of broth or stock are called for.

There we are–the making of stock in all of its good, bad and ugly glory. It is not hard to do, nor does it require much culinary finesse. It only requires time, patience and attention to detail, but the results are very much worth the effort. The flavor of homemade stock will ehance your cooking much more than the use of commerial broths, and the results are very healthful and satsifying.

This, of course, is the typical French method of stock-making. Look for a post soon on the making of Chinese-style chicken stock: I have one more whole chicken in the freezer, along with some pork neckbones, so I want to make a goodly batch of it to have on hand, too. The methods are similar, but different enough to warrant a completely different post.

With that, I bid you good day, and good cooking!