Stock, Broth, Jus

What is the difference between traditional, meat-based stock, broth and jus?

• Traditionally, stocks have the flavour and gelatinous collagen-y thickness that comes from cooking bones.
• Broth was cooked not with bones but with the meat itself.
• While a jus is a sauce made from the pan drippings, usually from a roast.

I learned this simple distinction from chef Thomas Keller.

Now, you can also have vegetable stock. So, another useful distinction between stock and broth includes that, generally, stock is intended to be used in the preparation of another dish rather than eaten directly like broth. As such, you would more likely use whole vegetables in stock to impart the flavour, but still scoop them out afterwards, while a broth would have cut vegetables ready to eat in the broth itself.

Also see:

• The tomato test for sharp knives
• The open-air kitchen
• Stop chopping board slip
• Fruit or vegetable
• The kitchen working triangle
• How to set the table
• The egg float test
• and something different: continuous partial attention