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A master stock or master sauce () is a
stock
Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...
which is repeatedly reused to
poach or
braise
Braising (from the French word ''braiser'') is a combination-cooking method that uses both wet and dry heats: typically, the food is first browned at a high temperature, then simmered in a covered pot in cooking liquid (such as wine, broth, c ...
meats. It has its origins in
Teochew cuisine
Teochew cuisine, also known as Chiuchow cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine or Teo-swa cuisine, originated from the Chaoshan region in the eastern part of China's Guangdong Province, which includes the cities of Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang. Teoch ...
and is typically used in
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
and
Fujian
Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...
cuisines. Foods poached or braised in the master stock are generally referred to as ''
lou mei
''Lou mei'' is the Cantonese name given to dishes made by braising in a sauce known as a master stock or ''lou'' sauce ( or ). The dish is known as ''Lǔ wèi'' in Taiwan.
''Lou mei'' can be made from meat, offal, and other off-cuts. The mos ...
''.
Composition
Master stocks are typically begun by simmering meat and bones with typical Chinese ingredients, namely water,
soy sauce
Soy sauce (sometimes called soya sauce in British English) is a liquid condiment of China, Chinese origin, traditionally made from a fermentation (food), fermented paste of soybeans, roasted cereal, grain, brine, and ''Aspergillus oryzae'' or ''A ...
,
rock sugar,
Shaoxing
Shaoxing is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. Located on the south bank of the Qiantang River estuary, it borders Ningbo to the east, Taizhou, Zhejiang, Taizhou to the south ...
or
rice wine
Rice wine is an alcoholic beverage fermentation, fermented from rice, traditionally consumed in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, where rice is a quintessential staple crop. Rice wine is made by the fermentation of rice starch, during wh ...
. Other commonly added
spice
In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...
s and flavourings include
scallion
Scallions (also known as green onions and spring onions) are edible vegetables of various species in the genus ''Allium''. Scallions generally have a milder taste than most onions. Their close relatives include garlic, shallots, leeks, chive ...
s,
shallot
The shallot is a cultivar group of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the difference was t ...
s,
star anise
''Illicium verum'' (star anise or badian, Chinese star anise, star anise seed, star aniseed and star of anise) is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to South China and northeast Vietnam. Its star-shaped pericarps harvested just before ripen ...
, dried citrus peel,
cassia bark
''Cinnamomum cassia'', called Chinese cassia or Chinese cinnamon, is an evergreen tree originating in southern China and widely cultivated there and elsewhere in South Asia, South and Southeast Asia. It is one of several species of ''Cinnamomum' ...
,
sand ginger,
Sichuan pepper
Sichuan pepper (, also known as Sichuanese pepper, Szechuan pepper, Chinese prickly ash, Chinese pepper, Mountain pepper, and ''mala'' pepper, is a spice commonly used in Sichuan cuisine in China, Bhutan and in northeast India. It is called mej ...
,
garlic
Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...
,
ginger
Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...
, and dried
mushrooms
A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom.
The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...
. The Teochew version does not include soy sauce.
Use
Once the base stock has been prepared, it is then used as a poaching or braising liquid for meat.
Chicken
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...
is the most common meat that is cooked in a master stock, although
squab
In culinary terminology, squab is an immature domestic pigeon, typically under four weeks old, or its meat. Some authors describe it as tasting like dark chicken.
The word "squab" probably comes from Scandinavia; the Swedish word means "loose ...
,
duck
Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family (biology), family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and goose, geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfam ...
,
quail
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey, or bevy.
Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New ...
, and
pork
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig animal husbandry, husbandry dating back to 8000–9000 BCE.
Pork is eaten both freshly cooke ...
are also often used.
or
sauce
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi- solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...
. Instead, the
broth
Broth, also known as bouillon (), is a savory liquid made of water in which meat, fish, or vegetables have been simmered for a short period of time. It can be eaten alone, but it is most commonly used to prepare other dishes, such as soups ...
is stored and reused in the future as a stock for more poaching. With each use, the poached meats and other ingredients absorb the stock's flavour while imparting their own back into the stock. In this way, over time, flavour accumulates in the stock, making it richer and more complex with each poaching, while subsequent poached meats absorb this flavour and likewise become more flavorful.
In non-Chinese cultures
Japan
Many
oden
is a type of nabemono (Japanese one-pot dishes) consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon or konjac, and processed fishcakes stewed in a light, soy-flavored dashi broth.
Oden was originally what is now commonly call ...
restaurants keep their broths as master stocks, straining them nightly to maintain their lightness and clarity even as their flavours grow in complexity.
Otafuku, an oden restaurant in Japan, has kept its broth simmering since 1945 (an earlier batch was destroyed in WWII).
Thailand
The Bangkok restaurant Wattana Panich has kept the broth for its beef stew and
beef noodle soup
Beef noodle soup is a Chinese noodle soup made of stewed or braised beef, beef broth, vegetables and noodles.
One of the oldest beef noodle soups is the Lanzhou niuroumian (蘭州牛肉麵), or Lanzhou beef noodle soup, which was created by ...
as a master stock for over forty years since moving to its current location.
United States
Between August 2014 and June 2015, Louro, a New York restaurant under the direction of chef David Santos, created dishes from a master stock.
As part of the restaurant's social media presence, the stock was dubbed "Perpetual Stu" (a pun on "perpetual stew") and had its own Twitter account, highlighting new ingredients as it developed.
Safety
{{more citations needed, section, date=February 2024
After use, if the master stock will not be immediately reused, it is usually boiled, skimmed, strained and cooled quickly to kill any
microorganism
A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic scale, microscopic size, which may exist in its unicellular organism, single-celled form or as a Colony (biology)#Microbial colonies, colony of cells. The possible existence of unseen ...
s in the stock. The growth of microbes in the stock can potentially spoil the flavour of the stock or pose a health risk. The stock is then refrigerated or frozen until required. Refrigerated stocks may be kept for up to three days, while frozen stocks may be kept for up to a month. If the stock is to be kept longer it must be boiled before being returned to storage.
In theory, a master stock could be sustained indefinitely if due care is taken to ensure it does not spoil.
See also
*
Perpetual stew
A perpetual stew, also known as forever soup, hunter's pot or hunter's stew, is a pot into which foodstuffs are placed and cooked, continuously. The pot is never or rarely emptied, and ingredients and liquid are replenished as necessary. Such foo ...
References
External links
*
Neil Perry'sbr>
Master Stock recipe*
Cheong Liew'srecipes for Master Stock and Master Stock dishes
Stock (food)