Stock

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.

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.

Mushrooms are well known for their meaty flavor. They are rich in natural umami elements and we enhance that here with the addition of soy sauce and sherry. The finished stock has a rich flavor that can be used for vegetarian soups and sauces or to enhance meat dishes. You can easily turn this into a rich mushroom soup with the addition of some sautéed mushrooms and a touch of cream.

This micro stock makes a great base for tomato soup, either hot or cold. It can also be used for soaking or finishing pasta, poaching fish or vegetables, or making Bloody Marys. The hoisin and hibiscus flowers (available from tea companies and gourmet supermarkets in the specialty tea section) round out the natural flavors of the tomatoes and give the stock that little something extra that makes the difference between good and great.

Beef bouillon was not served only at times of mourning. It was and still often is a base for matzo balls, it is served with noodles, and it is perfectly delicious as a broth, served hot, or cold as consommé gelé (aspic), at the beginning of any meal.

Chef Daniel Rose starts his day in the kitchen at 7:30 a.m. He begins with the chicken broth, first browning chicken wings, then adding a wine reduction, and then water, leeks, and other aromatics, but never carrots. “This isn’t the way my grandmother would have done it,” Daniel told me. “But we don’t want so much sweetness in our soup.” He doesn’t bother with a bouquet garni: “I just stick the herbs in the pot.” Freeze any broth that you don’t use right away.

A spectacular gravy begins with pan drippings, but the true flavor base comes from a good stock. The real selling point of this stock is that you can make it way in advance of Thanksgiving. And any leftovers of the stock will enhance the soups and sauces that follow the big feast.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Black Rice with Squid .

• Fish stock can be made with a mixture of any white fish and crustaceans, and crabs are a very good addition.

Look no further for a go-to recipe when making vegetarian stews and gravies. The stock here gets its deep flavor and color from roasting the vegetables and then deglazing the pan with red wine.

Beef, veal, and pork bones are hard to come by, so ask your butcher to save any he removes for you. Take them home and freeze them for later use in stock. These days, the scarcest of beef products has to be the bones! In the old days, the butcher had plenty of bones to spare, but today's precut meat means fewer bones at the retail level.

Dashi is a traditional Asian stock. The recipe is simple—the only ingredients are dried kelp (seaweed) and flakes of dried bonito, a type of fish. However, both ingredients are packed with flavor, creating a rich, aromatic broth.

This time-honored example of kitchen thrift is ready when you are: Have it simmering away while you tend to another meal or are puttering around on a Saturday morning. Just looking at it in the refrigerator or freezer will make you happy, secure in the knowledge that you can put a terrific meal on the table in no time at all.

There really isn't a lot of work involved in making chicken stock—you pretty much drop everything into a pot of water and let it simmer. What you do need, though, is time and patience to let the chicken, vegetables, and herbs transform the water into a golden, savory liquid that will make all the difference in soups and sauces.

Using stocks in place of water in a recipe gives an added dimension of flavor, so they're well worth making and using if you can. Many of the stocks in this book are described within the recipes, but here is a general method of making a variety of stocks. The key to making good stock is to simmer it very slowly for a long time, with only a few bubbles breaking on top of the pot. Slow-cooked stocks come out clear and full of flavor. The longer you cook a stock, the more intense it gets and the less of it you need in a recipe. Stocks hold up for a few days in the refrigerator or for a long time if well sealed in a freezer. Many cooks freeze stock in ice-cube trays, so they can slip out a few cubes and add it to recipes conveniently. Canned chicken stock can be used if you don't have your own. It's not as good, but it's acceptable. Canned beef stock is not very good, and I wouldn't recommend using it.

To make the most of the turkey's giblets and neck, we first brown them to give the resulting stock (and later, gravy) depth of flavor.

No matter how fast you prepare Thanksgiving dinner, you must have gravy, and you must have stuffing. And both need homemade turkey stock. This one is fast, even with the time it takes to brown the giblets, neck, and wing tips. You can mostly ignore it while it simmers, but you won’t be able to deny its enriching, ennobling presence in your finished gravy and stuffing.

This recipe originally accompanied Poached Salmon with Basil Butter and "Succotash" . This is a good, all-purpose stock for fish recipes. Be sure to rinse the bones very well as indicated to ensure a clean-tasting finished product. The best way to obtain five pounds of bones is to call your fishmonger and ask him or her to set them aside for you to collect at the end of the day.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from Aroma: The Magic of Essential Oils in Food and Fragrance by Mandy Aftel and Daniel Patterson. This is an incredibly useful and versatile stock. It has a sweet vegetal flavor that can be used in many different ways—as a base for sauces and soups, adding richness and depth without changing the essential flavor of what it is paired with. It keeps in the refrigerator for one week, or you can freeze it indefinitely.

Classic Italian stock vegetables enhance this amber-gold broth for an unbeatable gravy that really complements the turkey.

This quick stock, which uses the turkey's neck, heart, and gizzard to enrich purchased turkey or chicken stock, makes enough for the stuffing, mole sauce, and turkey and gravy.