Written for 8. Change that in the app and the amounts follow.
Tick things off as you get them ready.
Heat the oven to 220°C. Spread the bones in a roasting tin in one layer and roast them for 40 minutes.
Add the roughly cut onion, carrot and celery, smear the tomato paste over everything, turn it all once and roast another 20 minutes.
Tip the lot into your largest pot. Put the empty tin over a low flame, pour in the wine, and scrape every brown scrap off the bottom into the pot after it.
Cover with cold water by about 5 cm, add the garlic, bay, thyme and pepper, and bring it up slowly.
Skim the grey foam off in the first twenty minutes, then leave it barely trembling for five hours.
Strain it and let it cool. No salt.
Chill it overnight and lift the set fat off the top.
What she’d tell you
Ask the butcher for beef bones and he will very likely give them to you. Six hours later you have three litres of something no shop sells, and every stew and gravy you make for the next six months will be better than the one before it.
oxtail or a piece of shin: dearer, and they give even more body
leave it out, and scrape the tin with a splash of water instead
Five days in the fridge, set to a firm jelly if it is any good.
Freezes for six months. Freeze it in half-litre tubs, which is what most recipes ask for.
