I’ve been wondering about this expression. Why does a watched pot never boil? I’m thinking that we’ve had it all wrong since the beginning. Itå’s not that an impatient cook will watch a pot and not be happy about how long it takes to boil - though that did often happen in the last kitchen I inhabited. I think it might be that if you carefully watch a pot, it will not boil. Let me explain: when you have protein or vegetables cooking in a liquid, stock or water or whatever, if you boil them, you rupture the cells and create tough meat or mushy vegetables. A never boiling pot is a good thing.

I received Michael Ruhlman’s new book, The Elements of Cooking, as a Christmas present. Before I even finished the first ten pages, I realized there was a project I needed to start pronto, as in sooner than soon. Veal stock. That’s right, the stuff that makes the difference between restaurant cooking and home cooking. Ruhlman rightly points out that almost nobody ever makes this at home and that the most popular comprehensive cookbooks, Fanny Farmer, The Joy of Cooking, The New Basics, don’t even mention it. But, as Ruhlman says, this is the essential. He also writes, “From such simple material comes not only one of the most exquisite tools in the kitchen, but something more akin to a natural wonder or a great work of art. Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations, or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes me. There’s a reason why veal stock is considered the backbone of the finest culinary tradition of the Western world, what many consider to be, in the hands of the right chef, true artistry.” (7) While some may think this an exaggerated comparison, you might want to try making and using veal stock before reaching a conclusion on this point.

I reviewed Ruhlman’s recipe and advice and looked at several variants. He is careful to stress the importance of a long slow, not boiling of stock. The only ingredient I didn’t already have kicking around for this recipe was the star of the show, the veal. I walked down the street to the butcher and dragged home a ten pound bag of bones. Then I got to work roasting them.

After a blast of heat in a hot oven, I let them cool and then threw them in a stockpot. The only problem was, they didn’t all fit. I took out stockpot number two and divided the bones among the two pots, added water and brought them up to a boil. Then they had an extended hot bath overnight in the oven set to 200 degrees. After that I added the aromatics, simmered some more, cooled, strained, reduced and was left with about 3 quarts of dark brown liquid. I used some of it in a soup (more on that later) and reduced the rest of it a little more and put it in the freezer.

I’ve got to admit something to you now. That part in recipes that says to strain out the vegetables and meat and discard them…I can’t do it. I’m too frugal. I strained out the carrots, onions, celery and bones, picked off all of the meat, and moistened it all with some of the stock. We ate a pot au feu, the classic French-style boiled dinner, with spicy Dijon mustard and sea salt on the side. If that watched pot never boils, the reward is a clear stock and silky smooth poached meat and vegetables.

veal stock (adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking)

• 10 lbs. veal bones (knuckles, breast, shank)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large carrots, peeled
• 4 ribs celery, cleaned
• 2 large onions peeled and quartered
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked
• 5 stems thyme
• 5 stems parsley
• 2 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and rub two large baking pans with oil. Place veal bones on pans and put in oven and roast for 30 minutes, turn and continue roasting another 15 minutes or so. As Sara Moulton always says, use your nose on this one, when it smells good, it’s done.

Place the bones in a stock pot (or two as I had to do). If the what’s left in the baking pans that you roasted the bones on doesn’t look burned, you can pour off the oil, deglaze the pans with a little water and pour this liquid over the bones. Cover the bones with water by about two inches. Bring the water to a simmer (remember, no boiling) and skim off an scum and/or surface fat. Put the stock pot(s) in the oven and set it to 180 to 200 degrees (200 is fine if that’s as low as your oven will go). Let it cook for 8-10 hours. In the meantime, prepare your aromatics. An optional step is to roast the carrots, celery, onion, garlic and tomato paste for 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven (I did this and I think it makes a difference, but you can decide for yourself if you need an added step). Add all remaining ingredients to the pot(s), bring to a simmer, skim if necessary and put the pot(s) back in the oven for another 2 hours. Remove pot(s) from oven and strain first through a colander and then again through cheesecloth. Refrigerate the stock until the whole thing congeals and remove the fat from the top. At this point, you can use the stock or reheat it and put it in containers and freeze it. You could also reduce it if there’s too much of it to fit in your freezer.