Anthony Bourdain's Secret Ingredient For Cooking Restaurant-Quality Food At Home

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When Anthony Bourdain spoke, the world listened. In a career that started from humble beginnings, Bourdain became a touchstone as far as culinary opinions went — from his belief that burgers ought not to be larger than any mouth could conceivably open to a preference for pork over chicken. Many of his famous thoughts come from his first book, his veritable introduction to the wider world, "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly." Along with myriad anecdotes and revelations about the less savory side of restaurant kitchens, he offered some sage bits of wisdom, including the secret ingredient that separates restaurant-quality food from amateurish home cooking: homemade stock.

"Stock is the backbone of good cooking," he opined. In a different book, his "Les Halles Cookbook," he wrote that your home kitchen creations are definitely missing it, and it's why your homemade beef bourguignon can never match that which you get from a brasserie (or, presumably, any other restaurant that serves the dish).

Nor should you use canned or Tetra Pak stock, oh no; Bourdain emphasized the importance of making your own. After all, the homemade kind is absolutely superior in taste, texture, and even benefits to our bodies than the kind found on grocery store shelves. Real homemade stock adds a restaurant-quality depth of flavor and overall richness to any dish that calls for it.

Included in his book "Kitchen Confidential," Anthony Bourdain left a blueprint for how to make your own homemade stock. He called it easy, and so it really is. According to Bourdain, you'll want to roast some bones and vegetables and then "put them in a big pot with water and reduce and reduce and reduce." After it has reduced for a few hours, dump it through a strainer to remove the bone and vegetable bits (but please, oh please, remember to put a big pot or bowl underneath to catch the liquid!), and then you can pour it into smaller containers for freezing, so you always have some on hand when you need it.

While we surely appreciate Bourdain's method, we have a few suggestions for modifying his outline to make it even easier and more convenient. Rather than using fresh bones and fresh vegetables to make stock, you can freeze rotisserie chicken carcasses (or bones from any meat you have eaten, like steak for beef broth), while simultaneously also saving vegetable scraps. This way, you can choose when you make homemade stock, instead of the availability of the ingredients deciding. Second, you can use your Instant Pot in lieu of simmering on the stove. While you don't get the reducing effect (use less water for a more concentrated stock), it will get the job done a little bit faster and even more reliably hands-off.