Yesterday, I posted about these tasty beer and milk marinated bone-in pork chops grilled and topped with artichoke and cherry pepper slices.
Today, I’m taking the pork bones and leftover chops and turning them into about two quarts of very tasty pork stock.
And the cool thing? Since I had enough of the chops and that very nice artichoke and cherry pepper topping left over, I needn’t bother with any additional seasoning.
“Just add water,” as they say.
INGREDIENTS
•Leftover pork bones and chops
•Artichoke heart and cherry pepper topping
•Water
Note: feel free to use beef, chicken, or turkey bones in place of the pork, and if you don’t have some pretty nice artichoke heart and cherry pepper stuff leftover, go ahead and add the usual suspects to your pot:
•4 carrots, quartered
•6 stalks of celery, including tops, chopped
•1/2 red pepper, sliced
•1/2 yellow onion, sliced
•1/2 large red onion, coarsely chopped
•5 cloves garlic, lightly smashed and peeled
•1 jalapeño, halved (optional)
•4 sprigs fresh rosemary
•A good handful fresh parsley
•4 or 5 stems fresh oregano
•2 bay leaves
Pop your bones into the pot with additional seasonings (unless you’re going with the artichoke heart thing – which, really, was so nice, I may make it again just to use on its own) into your pressure cooker and add water to the “max fill” line.
Lock the lid in place and set the pot for one hour on high pressure.
Note: my pot only went to 58 minutes. Still worked a treat, so don’t fret it.
Once the cycle has completed, release the pressure (be careful of the steam) and strain the stock through a fine meshed sieve, pressing on the veggies to get additional tasty stock out of them.
Allow the stock to cool, then skim the fat off the top.
You can keep your stock in the fridge for up to three days or freeze it for up to three months.
I ended up using both options; save enough stock to make a batch of pork risotto – those leftover chops I made the stock out of came out of the pressure cooker wicked tender and flavorful.
I’ll cover the risotto recipe in Friday’s “Parfait!” post.
I also used some of the stock in place of the more usual beef stock to make a fine pot of Cioppino for dinner another evening.
The rest of the the stock, I froze in ice cube trays until solid, then popped into freezer bags for easy access, two tablespoon measure stock balls for whenever I need a bit of nicely flavored, home made stock.
All in all, a fine use for leftover bones and stuff; all in a little bit over an hour.