Can’t be bothered to make stock? Here are the ways to keep cooking simple

Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge admits to using stock cubes at home instead of making his own. He’s right – some things aren’t worth spending too much time on

Top chef in stock shock! Tom Kerridge’s admission that he uses stock cubes at home raised a few well-manicured eyebrows at the Cheltenham literary festival last weekend – the accepted wisdom being that any cook worth their Maldon sea salt has a freezer full of neatly labelled, lovingly homemade stuff. Indeed, I’ve probably implied this in the past myself, and it’s a big fat lie; most bones in my house go to the dog in one form or another, and with freezer space at a premium, ice-cream is always going to be a priority there. (And no, that’s not homemade either.)

This is not to say all ready-made stock is made equal – Diana Henry eschews “horrible” cubes in favour of liquid concentrates, and a quick Twitter survey reveals the Michelin-garlanded Marco Pierre White is not alone in his devotion to jellied stock pots, while I favour organic cubes (won’t someone think of the chickens?). Whatever your preference, the very fact you have one suggests that you don’t spend every Sunday evening boiling up the bones of the lunchtime roast. Frankly, for many of us, life is just too short.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2wIBusm