What a fabulously relaxing time in Bali we have just enjoyed. Our indolence wouldn’t have suited the intrepid travellers amongst us, who wish to pack in as much activity and as many temples as they can, but we have been around thirty times together now and have seen all of the usual tourist attractions. Even sloths age, and I’m sure that as they do they become more slothful. Still, we keep going back to Bali because we love it there.
One of the things we love in Bali is a good funeral. Luckily for us (but not for the departed) there was one going on during a light lunch session at the Stadium Bar in Kuta, the place of litre-sized Bintang beers and deep-fried family-sized meat platters and chips. This is a favourite of ours, especially half-way through the holiday as Judith’s tolerance for Indonesian food and rice diminishes at an inversely proportional rate to mine.
First, come the Balinese ladies carrying offerings to one or more of the Hindu deities and accessories for the afterlife. They precede the musicians with drumming and other banging or tinkling instruments who of course provide a better musical experience than the doof-doof that is usually playing in the bar for the youngsters. It nicely drowns out the wishes of the American ‘artists’ coming through the bar speakers, who usually want to bust a cap in someone else’s ass. Is rap a kind of poetry? Well, it certainly contains assonance.
Then comes the VIP – the host of the entire ceremony. He or she is normally in an elaborate casket guided by an umbrella-bearer. The umbrella is to shade the casket from the sun, as it’s going to get pretty hot in there later on. I think the sheet in front might be the wick used in the subsequent torch-lighting ceremony. If Bali hosted the Olympics, maybe this is the method they would use to kick the whole thing off.
Then comes the ceremonial traffic jam of motorbikes, with all riders on their mobile phones texting that they will be late because they’ve been held up by another funeral.
We usually take a trip down Legian Street in Bali, to shop, dine and stop off halfway in one of the many bars. In 2002, Paddy’s Bar on Legian Road was bombed by terrorists representing the minority religion in Bali. They built a wonderful memorial to the victims of this attack, which we visit each time we are there.
I do get the odd compliment about my gravy, but mostly from odd people. I use a master stock method – in that I reuse previously prepared stock to both impart its flavour into, and collect flavour from, whatever’s cooking. Usually a Roast, but I do a curry master stock in this way too. Here’s how I’ll do a roast lamb, for example:
- Unpack the meat, leave it do dry, then rub oil, salt and pepper into the skin.
- Peel and chop an onion, carrot, celery, or whatever root veggies you have. They don’t have to be at the peak of freshness. Quarter a tomato, throw in a few cloves of garlic.
- Stick it all in a bowl and crumble a beef oxo cube into the bowl. With a dripping tap over the bowl, get all the excess stock off your hands – don’t put too much water into the bowl.
- Move it all around and put it all in a roasting pan that is only slightly bigger than the meat.
- Bunch the veggies up into the middle and gently rest the meat on top, so it is free from the bottom of the pan.
- Roast it.
- While roasting, if the bottom of the pan gets dry, stick a bit more liquid in it. You could splash some red wine in, if you wanted to sacrifice some. I never do.
- When you reckon the meat is ready, take it out of the pan and rest it. I usually wrap it in foil, making sure there are no holes or seams at the bottom of the foil parcel.
- That leaves the roasting pan. Boil a kettle. Put everything in the pan in a stock pot.
- Pour boiling water into the empty pan, get all that brown off the bottom with a spatula, rinse it and put that in the stock pot.
- Fill the stock pot with boiling water, a litre or two.
- Get a potato masher and tamp down the veggies in the liquid, breaking and crushing them roughly.
- Simmer covered on low for a few hours. This is the start of the next addition to the master stock.
Meanwhile, you’ve got a roast dinner to serve and eat, but no gravy. All you’ve done so far is to seed the next gravy. But fear not – you have the last gravy, that has either been in the fridge or the freezer if you’ve been away. Put some of that gravy in a small saucepan, heat it up, reduce it, and serve that. I slightly over-reduce it and put a ladle of the new stock into it for a boost.
After you’ve taken the rested meat out of the foil to carve, there will be a heap of meat juices at the bottom of the foil parcel. I carry that over to the simmering stock and put them in there – every little bit helps. Or you can distribute the juices all over the kitchen floor if you have holes in your foil. If using the kitchen floor method, be sure to swear loudly and slip in the juices.
After dinner you may have leftover bones or scraps. Even the juices left on the carving board – all of this can go into the simmering stock. Eventually, that evening or afternoon, turn off the heat to the stock pot and leave it to stand overnight. The next day, get it simmering again, then sieve it into stock pan 2. Keep the sieve over the top of stock pot 2. Rinse stock pot 1 with boiling water and pour it into the sieve over stock pot 2. Put stock pot 1 back on the stove ready. Pour a little boiling water over the sieve on stock pot 2. Get a spatula and move it around in the sieve until it runs dry. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This sort of ‘rinses’ the mashed veggies in the sieve, and all the rinsed juices go into stock pot 2. After all this, and I know it’s a lot of effort, you can either discard the contents of the sieve, or you can use it later as a veggie soup base.
So now you’ve got stock pot 2 full of fatty stock. Pour as much as you can into a fat separator and let it stand. After a while, turn on the stove to heat stock pot 1 and pour the fatless stock into it from the bottom of the fat separator. At this point, you may have more stock in stock pot 2, that wouldn’t fit into the last pour. Again, pour that excess into the fat separator and repeat. I keep the leftover fat, because it is great to roast potatoes and other veggies at a later date.
Now you’ve got a good amount of stock sans gras in stock pot 1. But it’s weak. Reduce it. Halfway through reduction, pour in any stock you have already – from last time and from yesterday’s gravy. When reduced, taste and reduce further if needed. Store the new stock for next time.
For me, it’s all about reuse. Waste nothing – if in doubt, put it in the stock. You can do the same with a basic cooked supermarket chicken for dinner; eat the bird, scrape anything leftover (except the stuffing), bones, skin, juices veggies into a pan, crumble a chicken oxo cube over it, rinse your hands into the pot, pour over liquid and simmer, use the method above the next day. This stock is particularly good in the next chicken pasta bake.
