Seventeenth century meat stock from François Pierre La Varenne (2 litres)
Adaptation © Christianne Muusers

This is the first 'historical' recipe for stock on my site. This meat stock is taken from Le cuisinier françois by François Pierre la Varenne, from 1651. It is the opening recipe in the book, a real basic recipe. The stock is made with a lot of meat, and all kinds of it: beef, mutton, fowl. From the advise to keep hot water at hand to add to the pan if necessary it seems that less water was added during the preparation than in modern stock making, or in other words, more meat was used for the same amount of water. Mutton ('mouton') is used in this basic recipe. If you do not like the taste of mutton, replace with lamb, or with beef. However, the authenticity of the taste is then lost.
There are no vegetables used in this stock, not even onions or leeks.

Ingredients:
1 pound shin of beef
1 pound rump of beef
1 pound leg of lamb
1 pound boiling hen (that is a quarter or sixth of a wole boiling hen, just make chicken stock of the rest. Do not use roasting chicken for making soup)
bouquet garni of parsley, chives, thyme
5 cloves
4 litres (4 quarts or 1 gallon) water

Preparation in advance:
Make a bouquet by tying the herbs together.

Preparation:
Place meat and herbs in a large pan. Add 4 litres hot water. Bring to the boil and simmer for four to six hours. Strain the stock, and reduce to two litres, then let it cool quickly. Now you can freeze what you don't need immediately. 
Do not forget to label your frozen stock, in the freezer all stocks look alike.

If you want a dark stock, first roast your meat and fowl for 30 minutes in an oven at 225dgC/ 440dgF. According to La Varenne you should now extract the juice from the meat, which is described on p.127: Prick the meat with a knife, press the meat to extract the juice. Not everyone will have a meat press at hand. Just take two G-cramps and two boards. Put the meat between the boards and turn the cramps as tight as possible. Don't forget to place a dish under it to catch the extracted juices.

If you want to use the stock for potage à la reyne make sure to make it from cooked meat, because the potage should be light-coloured.