More resource and time saving ideas

There are two made ahead ingredients involved in the next dinner menu. One is time consuming and can be replaced, the other is easy, fast and helps avoid wasting good food.

The first is an extreme reduction of broth, in this case mostly veal and some beef. Over the winter I cooked a lot of dishes that used bony and tougher cuts of veal and beef. Every time, I made broth with them, often adding trimmings and extra rib bones and so forth. I would re-cook and further reduce the broth every time and then freeze it. In all I used about 40 liters of broth and ended up with one pint of reduction. For this veal dish I used the last half-pint of it. I’ve often told about making stock and brodo, so I won’t explain it all again, but haven’t talked before of the long, slow cooking that leads to this thick and syrupy reduction that I kept in the freezer. It can be replaced with reductions that you can buy from restaurant supply sites, or with “Better then Bouillon” reduction which you can buy in smaller quantities at many grocery stores, including Trader Joe’s.

The second is one of those simple things anyone can do to have on hand all the time. When I come from the grocery store with fresh celery, I wash it and cut the top part off. The celery I buy is longer than my refrigerator is wide—not the inside but the outside! Sometimes I chop the leaves and freeze them for adding to things I cook. Once in a while I cut off about 8-10″ of the top, and cut it into 1″ or so lengths, stalks, leaves and all. I then peel 2-3 carrots and 2-3 onions and chunk them into a similar size. I put it all into the food processor and pulse it until it is very finely chopped. I load this mince into cupcake and muffin forms and freeze them hard. Once hard I pop them out into plastic bags and store them like ice cubes. Voila! One-half cup portions of basic soffritto are on hand any time you need it. With one of them and a couple of cups of water you can make a 20 minute fast vegetable broth. Lots of Italian recipes start with this soffritto, usually sautéed in oil before adding the other ingredients. Three of them, a chicken and water to cover makes up into a wonderful chicken broth and a cooked chicken to use for lots of cooked chicken recipes, and the chicken won’t be tasteless and sucked dry of all its flavor, but very infused with the flavors of these “profumi.” Just strain the broth… it won’t be clear and golden like Nonna’s soup, but it will be just the thing for a risotto or a gravy.