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)

A couple days ago I was preparing bread dough and thinking that it would be nice to make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner with the finished bread. My next thought naturally went to tomato soup. I had a few cans of the ever so classic Campbell’s tomato soup in my cupboard. Dinner was planned. However, I then remembered that I have been toying with the idea of making tomato soup from scratch. I also remembered that I had recently bought a cart full (slight exaggeration) of good quality canned tomatoes. So then I was on a mission. I left the bread dough to rest and began to scour the internet for tomato soup recipes.

I found tons of interesting recipes but none were quite what I was looking for. Gourmet creamy tomato soups with puff pastries and recipes that included a long list of various vegetables like carrots, celery, bell peppers, and more. Also, recipes using strange or obviously overpowering herbs and spices were everywhere. The worst was one that used red food colouring to make the soup red because there were so many other veggies in it that it lost its redness. This just would not do! If a tomato soup is not red simply because of the tomatoes in it then something is horribly wrong! Some recipes looked delicious and some looked horrible but none were what I wanted. I wanted a simple tomato soup recipe that would result in a Campbell’s-like tomato soup, but… better, because it was homemade. Once a basic recipe was discovered it could then be built upon to make any fancy version one wishes. Add cream, add a pastry top, and add other flavourings as you desire, but the basic recipe MUST stand on its own. Also, as there are many recipes that call for canned tomato soup as an ingredient, I want to have the option to go the extra mile and make that ingredient from scratch from time to time. After my disappointing search I went back to the bread dough to finish kneading it and to think.

I ended up taking aspects of some of the recipes I found and added in a couple of my own ideas and developed a recipe. I set the dough aside for its first rise and got to work on my tomato soup experiment. I decided to take an approach similar to making tomato sauce and do a long simmer in order to develop a rich tomato flavour, so since the bread would take about 2 or 3 hours from this point I figured the timing should work out. So I did the first few steps in my little recipe and set it to simmer while the bread dough rose.

Fast forward to the moment of truth. The bread was finished and oh so spectacular, as always, and I was preparing the grilled cheese sandwiches. I had been tasting the soup as it cooked and I was pretty happy with it throughout the process, not wowed, but there’s no way of telling how it will actually taste when its all done, until, well until it’s done. So I gave it its final taste test, and WOW! It’s exactly what I was looking for. I did not expect the experiment to be so successful but I’m really really happy with it. It’s smooth and rich with deep tomato flavour, and it has that special Je ne sais quoi, that you crave when thinking about tomato soup. It takes a lot longer, but if you have time, it’s worth it for the flavour. My top food critic, my husband, had this to say, “Sure, I had to wait three hours for grilled cheese and tomato soup, but it was the best I ever had!” In the future I will cook it down to make condensed soup and use this as specified in recipes that call for canned soup. I will probably make big batches of it and freeze for convenience.

Just look at that spread of pure food delight. Three hours work well worth it. There is something so satisfying about freshly baked bread sitting on a rack to cool. I made two sandwich loafs and four giant hamburger buns…(big plans for those). I’ll post my bread recipes soon. The star of the show for now, however is the tomato soup. I will make it again soon and when I do I will document each step and post the recipe. Stay tuned! (my recipe for tomato soup here)