subtype: Broth
Meat: Beef

Bone Broth

• 3-4 Lbs of Beef Shank, Beef
• Bones, Beef Knuckles, Veal Shanks or whatever offcuts are cheap at the market
• 2 Carrots, roughly chopped
• 3 Stalks of Celery, roughly Chopped
• 1 Onion, slice into 1/4’s leaving the root intact
• 1/2 Lb of Cremini Mushrooms, Quartered
• A few sprigs of Fresh Thyme
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 1 Head of Garlic
• 1 Tablespoon of Whole
• Peppercorns
• 3 Tablespoons Tomato
• Paste

In a large roasting pan, add all your beef bones and knuckles and roast at 450 for about 45 minutes. While that cooks, roughly chop the onion (with skins), celery, carrots, mushrooms and cut the garlic in half, and coat them all with a few tablespoons of tomato paste. After 30 minutes, flip the bones and continue to cook until the bones are well caramelized.
Then remove them from the oven, transfer all the contents of the roasting pan into the stockpot and fill with cold water and bring up to a boil. Then drain out all the beef fat from the roasting pan (and reserve that for later). Then add the vegetables to the sheet tray and then lower the heat to the oven to 400 and roast the vegetables until they are caramelized and the fond from the bones further caramelizes on the bottom of the sheet tray.
By the time the vegetables are lightly roasted (make sure to not burn the vegetables or the tomato paste) and you remove them from the onion, there should be scum starting to accumulate on the top of the pot that you need to skim off. Once you think you’ve skimmed off most of the scum, add the roasted vegetables to the stockpot and then take some of the stock and pour it on the sheet tray and with a flat spatula, scrape to deglaze the pan, and then pour it into the stockpot.
Then add the whole, split heads of garlic, fresh thyme, the bay leaf, and whole peppercorns. Bring it up to a gentle simmer. Once there are bubbles slowly coming to the surface and gently popping. Maintain that simmer for at least 8-24 hours, really the longer you do it the better. If you aren’t comfortable leaving it on the stove on an extra-low burner overnight then wake up early and let it cook from early morning until late night.
Then let it cool, strain the broth from the contents of the stockpot, Transfer to quart containers. You can either discard the bones or refill the pot with cold water to make a second stock. You should have about 7-8 quarts, we can save 4 for later and use 2 1/2 quarts plus some of the beef fat we reserved for the French onion soup.