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Oh the simple pleasures! I love making stock! The simplicity, the aromas, the usefulness of the finished product, it is all such a delight. Anyone who has ever made real, homemade stock will probably agree that store bought stock is a joke. It cannot possibly compare to this glory.

Beef stock is the second most frequent stock that I make. For me it is a little less convenient than chicken stock, since I often buy whole chickens and, therefor always have a supply of chicken bones and cuttings with which to make stock. Beef stock requires beef marrow bones, which I have to actually buy special. Now, there are some cuts of beef that include bones, and some of them even have marrow in them (like Beef Chuck Arm Steak). If you use these cuts of beef often and save the bones, then you can make your stock with those. Since I do not, however, I must buy my bones from the butcher. So I make it a little less often, but one of the things that I absolutely love about making beef stock is that the marrow bones render so much fat! I get five times the fat out of one batch of beef stock than I do out of a batch of chicken stock. Remember, stock is not the only thing you get out of making stock. That fat is just as valuable! Lately I have been more careful about the chicken that I use, and I have found that healthier chickens have much less fat than typical grocery store chickens, and their fat has a different quality. Typically, chicken fat, when cooled, has a texture similar to butter (ditto with beef fat), but the healthier chickens often leave me with fat that stays mostly liquid under refrigeration and even stays soft in the freezer! And since I get so little of it from the healthy chickens these days, I consider my occasional batches of beef stock a rendered fat jackpot.

This is another “non-recipe” recipe. Amounts are fairly arbitrary. When making stock you don’t usually count or measure your ingredients, but I do so for the purposes of this guide. If you do exactly what I do here, you will end up with perfect stock, but don’t feel that you must be exact. When making this guide, I ended up with about two quarts (liters) of beef stock. Your results will vary depending various factors.

It doesn’t matter how many years you have been a successful chef or what famous culinary school you went to, whatever you think the important differences between stock and broth are, there will surely be others with similarly impressive credentials as you, who have different opinions.

There is a difference, but I think it’s more of a spectrum than a black or white issue. Some say that stocks are merely simmered bones with no seasoning, vegetables or other ingredients involved, while broth is boiled meat with vegetables and sometimes spices and seasoning added to the mix. Others say that both broth and stock can contain bones as well as meat, but the important difference is the ratio of meat to bone, whereas a stock would contain more bone and visa versa. Another opinion is that broths are merely flavoured stocks. Still others say broth is stock that is being used in a soup. Salt content is sometimes described as being the critical difference as well. Sifting through the intricacies of the arguments can become quite tedious.

If forced to ultimately distinguish between the two I would say that they are the same, save that stocks are made with bones and broths are made with meat. Stocks are thick and gelatinous like jello when cooled because of the collagen that is extracted from the bones and connective tissues while simmering. The gelatinous quality of stock makes it better than broth for deglazing pans and is often used in place of butter or cream to make sauces in this way. Pure broth will stay liquid when cooled and will not taste quite as rich as a stock. This can be a desirable quality for light soups and other recipes that require a lighter flavour. It seems that many people feel that stocks should not include vegetables, but I don’t see any reason why they should not. I feel that if the dish you are preparing cannot do with the subtle flavours that vegetable add to a stock than one can merely make a stock without vegetables. To this Ill add that while vegetables seem to usually be required for a broth, there is no law against making a simple broth with only meat. When I make chicken broth I usually use bones and meat and the result is gelatinous when refrigerated, so I suppose that could be considered a stock, but I also put vegetables into it and use it as a base for soups, sometimes with water added to thin it if it is meant to be a light soup. The important thing, I think, is to use what is best for the recipe and call it what you like, whether it falls directly into the pure definition of the word or not.

To summarize, in my non-expert opinion stock and broth can be considered the same thing. You may choose to make a gelatinous broth by using bones or meat and bone combination or you can use only meat for a lighter result. Either way it will be delicious and will certainly out do anything you can buy at the store. You can detect the simplicity and taste the freshness in a homemade broth. I strongly urge you to try making it if you never have before. It takes time, but it is very little work. (recipe for chicken stock HERE)