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The Story
Let me tell you about my obsession with bone broth. I’ve never been particularly excited by soup, although I’d concede to the odd stew or thick blend of veggies. I certainly had no time for anything watery, and thin stocks weren’t even up for discussion. Then I discovered bone broth. This magnificent golden friend, silky and smooth to eat, wobbly like jelly when it’s set, and packed with flavour both deep and subtle at the same time. The days are getting shorter and the weather cooler, and you need bone broth in your life.
I’m used to appreciating big, bold, hearty sauces, and not being able to see the bottom of the bowl, but bone broth changed me. Aside from pure eating pleasure, and a long list of claimed health benefits, I swear that it tastes better with the knowledge that you’ve used your ingredient (meat) to its fullest. We buy bags of bones from the butcher for next to nothing, where they’d otherwise be tossed out. Then we use them to make weeks’ worth of bone broth, and salvage all of the meat that comes free in the cooking process to put into another 2-4 meals of filled pasta or stir fries. In fact, with a few big bunches of homegrown greens, a couple of serves of homemade pasta or risotto rice, and the odd herb and spice, a $7 bag of discarded bones will generally provide us with up to 8 nutritious meals for 2 (stretched to 2.5 for little Al) people. That’s less than 50 cents a serve!
What’s more, you’re combining a wonderful array of meaningful cooking concepts: sustainability, in using every last bit and producing minimal waste; arrangiarsi, by cooking with leftovers (bones) together with whatever you have at hand; and nutrition, by using cooking methods to draw the most out of your ingredient. When I discovered bone broth, I inadvertently discovered the perfect encapsulation of my entire approach to food and cooking.
Here’s the best bit though. Traditionally, bone broths would take 12-24 hours (or longer) to cook, but we’ve done the testing for you, and can excitedly say that we have a solution to your relatable time-poor woes! Here is our pressure cooker recipe to get you that golden jelly goodness in little more than 3 hours.
The Broth
We start off by roasting the bones in a hot oven for about 20 minutes, to give their flavour a hearty boost. Quick note on bone selection: whilst the big marrow bones may look tempting (and delicious, which they are), they’re not the best for bone broth. Instead, you want joints and bones with plenty of connective tissue. This is where that joyous silky, jelly texture comes from, as well as many of the purported health benefits.
While they’re roasting, make a soffritto of the carrot, onion, and celery with the olive oil, in the unsealed pressure cooker. Keep this on low heat, stirring regularly. Then introduce your herbs, vinegar, and water. Add only enough water to just cover the bones, and make sure that if you’re scaling this recipe up you never fill your pressure cooker to more than 2/3 capacity. Lock and load the cooker, ensuring that it’s properly sealed, and raise the heat to high to speed up the pressurisation process. Once it seals, drop the heat back to low, and leave it to cook under pressure for 3 hours.
When it comes to depressurizing, I strongly recommend that you take it off the heat and let it cool by itself for 20-30 minutes before attempting to release any steam. If you have graduated pressure settings on your pot (ie. red meat, fish, vegetables) then step down through them rather than immediately opening it all the way up. It’s a very hot, excited pot after so long under pressure, so be careful.
Next, it’s time to strain. If you’d like some lumps and bumps in your broth, then you can just use a colander for this. Personally though, I find that the broth really shines without anything floating in it, so I first use a colander before pouring it through a straining cloth. Then let it cool, and transfer it to the fridge. Important side note here: don’t throw away the stuff that you strain off! If nothing else, the likely surprising amount of meat that you’ll find in there makes for a great future meal. We normally use it to stuff a filled pasta, or throw it into a quick stir fry. Instant flavourful protein!
It may take overnight, but eventually your refrigerated broth will develop a hard layer of fat on top. You can easily scoop this off, leaving below it your gorgeous, smooth, ready-to-use bone broth. You can even use that fat to cook future meals.
Note that if you’re in a real rush and don’t have time to leave it overnight, you can remove some of the fat by straining it hot through a chilled cloth. In theory this causes the fat to coagulate and stick to the cloth as the broth passes through, but I don’t find it as efficient a method as the overnight refrigeration.
We find that the best way to store our broth is to freeze it portioned into reusable containers or pouches. When you come to cook with it, either use it at its current concentration, or stretch it even further by adding water. There’s so much flavour in this stuff, that even diluted it will taste fantastic.
This time around we paired it with our four cheese fagottini, with extra cheese on top, and it was spectacular! Whatever you choose to serve it with, this hearty, subtly flavoured broth is sure to make you smile.
Have fun and enjoy!
– Al & Al.
Equipment
- Pressure cooker
- Oven
Ingredients
- 0.8 kg of beef bones (can also substitute with other bones of your choice)
- 2 celery stalks chopped
- 1 carrot chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 6 garlic cloves peeled and squashed
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 handful of thyme
- 1 handful of rosemary
- 1 handful of parsley
- 3-4 bay leaves
- 1/2 tbsp peppercorns
- 2 l water never any higher than 2/3 of pot
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tbsp salt
Instructions
- Spread the bones on a tray, and roast in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius, for 20 minutes.
- Add the celery, carrot, onion, and garlic into the pressure cooker with the olive oil. Sauté on low heat, stirring, until the onion begins to soften and becomes transparent.
- Stir the thyme, rosemary, parsley, bay leaves and peppercorns into the pot. Raise the heat to medium and sauté for a further 2-3 minutes, stirring.
- Add in the bones, vinegar, and salt, and pour in enough water to just cover the bones. Note that if you’re scaling this recipe up, your liquid level should be no higher than 2/3 of the pot.
- Seal the pressure cooker, raise the heat to high to seal, and then return it to low heat to cook for 3 hours.
- Remove the pot from the heat, and allow it to cool for half an hour before depressurising. If your pressure cooker allows it, step down through the pressure settings rather than immediately opening the steam valve. This broth will be very hot, and may blast out of the pressure valve if depressurised too soon.
- Once it has cooled enough to handle, strain the broth through a colander to remove the large chunks of veggies, bones, and meat. Consider picking off and keeping the meat – it can make a great pasta filling or be quickly thrown into a stir-fry.
- Pour the broth through a straining cloth to remove finer impurities, and transfer to containers/bowls to cool. Once cool enough to refrigerate, cover and leave in the fridge overnight; this will cause the fat to solidify on the surface and make it much easier to remove from the broth.
- Once the broth has completely cooled, use a slotted spoon or similar to remove the fat solids from the surface. You may choose to keep this as a cooking fat, otherwise discard.
- Transfer to storage containers until ready to use. It can be portioned and frozen, and when eaten either used as is or diluted with water to stretch further. For an ideal, warming, pairing, check out our four cheese fagottini recipe!
I made this wonderful full flavoured broth/stock last weekend and it was sensational. I got the bones free from my regular Queen Vic Market butcher which had enough meat on the cooked bones to make home made beef ravioli with a creamy mushroom sauce using some of the gelatinised stock instead of chicken stock. We are very impressed and of course happy. Thanks for the great posting. Cheers, Garry
I was wondering if you could have the big marrow bones sawed in half at the butcher? like the hocks of ham?
Hi! Yes, butchers will normally cut them down to size for you 😊