A NOTE ON BUILDING BLOCKS

Stock while essential to an honest restaurants kitchen, is sometimes overlooked by the home cook. Often stock is viewed as a complicated chore, at times when a recipe calls for veal stock, can we actually acquire the the veal bones? Supermarkets do not usually carry bones as a matter of course.
Stocks form the basis of most soups and sauces, and can be made from beef,veal,lamb,chicken,rabbit,fish and vegetables.
The japanese have a version of stock called dashi, which requires the use of kombu(seaweed) and bonito(dried tuna).
You will find during a search as many different recipes for stock as uses. Stock is a personal thing, i like to include star anise in my meat and chicken stock, with aromatics such as parsley, bay and thyme. I like to include carrot,onion,garlic and sometimes a parsnip, a couple of pepper corns as well. Some people like to include celery, some don't because it can leave a bitter note. I have found recipes for stock that includes only two ingredients bones and water, these recipes are striving for a pure unadulterated stock. A great many cooks will roast bones first, to develop colour and flavour,some even coat them in tomato paste! I make my stock using a big saucepan, but use a pressure cooker and you can develop great flavoured stock in under an hour!
For me stock is about my mood, i don't have to abide by rules in my kitchen, so i can tailor my stock for what ever use i intend! This is the beauty of cooking, you can break the rules, as long as the end result is good! If i will be cooking an Asian dish and require a light chicken stock i can change the aromatics maybe include lime leaves instead of bay, a little lemon grass,the choice is endless!
Recently when i have simmered a ham, i have included aromatics and vegetables, after removing the ham, i will let the cooking water reduce- then strain and bingo, a ready made stock, i like to clarify this as much as possible to use with pea or pea and ham soup. This is not cutting edge cooking, just minimising waste, the cooking fluid would have ended up down the drain and i have a pea soup with a lot more body!
Most people i know will use cooking water from the veg on a Sunday to add to the gravy, again this is a kind of stock- a building block.
A little while back when experimenting with carrot soup i made three side by side. The first was made with chicken stock, second with beef stock and the last with the cooking water!The object of that exercise was to try and make a very tasty soup without a meat based stock, they were all exceptional soups, the beef had the most body with out a doubt, but the use of a vegetable stock would have been great, but i achieved my goal i made a soup that was exceptional without any stock and at the point i knew if i hit hard times i wouldn't go hungry!
Stocks can often be reduced, to develop a great flavour, therefor they become a building block of a great sauce. I have often thought of using juiced fruits, such as apple as a stock for a pork or a ham dish. Maybe this would not work, but with an understanding of flavours it could.
The building blocks of good dishes are endless, we have traditional stocks for a reason, they build flavour!