[dfinninger]

Something that I picked up after watching one of J. Kenji López-Alt’s videos was chaining ingredients. Specifically the difficult ones and not necessarily just reusing the rest of the green onion in the bottom of the fridge.

So, now I give myself a budget of one or two “difficult/time consuming” ingredients. This can be Demi-glacé or some other homemade reduction, soy-marinated eggs, slow-cooked brisket, etc. And I make more of it than I need to.

Then I make and eat the meal I was planning on, but I now have a leftover ingredient. Then for my next meal, I can re-use that ingredient and choose another difficult one. It helps with inspiration and effort level.

An example would be: make homemade tomato sauce then make Spaghetti. Next make dough and reuse the sauce into some homemade pizza. Then use the rest of the dough for garlic bread next to a salad (and maybe there’s a little red sauce left for dipping). Etc.

Of course, I’m not doing this for individual meals, I’m batching it up into 3-4 servings each.

[ebiester]

Have you seen Adam Ragusea's cheater demi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WLUMS7Ung

It's about 80% as good as the real thing but that's pretty useful to have.

[ghaff]

You can also buy concentrated stock packages and just bring them to a simmer with however much water you want to use for the consistency. I basically never bother with doing it from scratch these days.

[ebiester]

Where are these concentrated stock packages? I've had better than bullion and added gelatin to that, and I think I've seen heinz demi, but what concentrate stock packages to you have available?

[bitbang]

Asian food stores have lots of seafood related stock that is difficult to locate elsewhere. For instance, I'll use shrimp paste sourced from Asian food stores when making shrimp étouffée.

[ghaff]

I use something called More than Gourmet Glace de Veau Gold. (They have other varieties as well.) www.morethangourmet.com

[c_apocalypticae]

I made a batch of this for a tenderloin last year and it’s amazing. I froze it into cubes and have a freezer bag full of them that I use for damn near everything now, including burgers.