A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
OK, so we're doomed: on that we can all agree.
But that doesn't mean we need to live like savages post the Apocalypse.
So, herewith one of the most important discoveries I have made in my long-ish life: how to make a proper chicken stock. (This is an extension, by the way, of Rob's unexpectedly popular foodie thread yesterday)
The basic aim is this: you do not want your stock to emulsify. If it emulsifies (ie goes cloudy because the grease has bonded with the liquid) you have failed. Your stock will still be edible but it will be greasy and unattractive. What you want is something clear and amber.
1. Take all the bones from a roast chicken dinner (including the various wing/leg/thigh bones from your family's/guests' plates: don't be squeamish, it's not going to kill you) and roast them in the oven (I know you have a different word for "roast" in the US: "broil" is it? Something weird like that) until they are light to medium brown. (If you don't do this, the stock is more likely to emulsify: not good)
2. Put the roasted bones into a large saucepan with a peeled onion, some carrot, some celery and a bay leaf (plus a bouquet garni, if you can be bothered but it doesn't matter). Cover with water.
3. Bring very, VERY slowly to a simmer so gentle that the surface of the liquid barely moves.
4. After two, three, four hours - or when it looks like you've got all the useful stuff out of the bones and vegetables - strain through a sieve into a pan. Then you can either leave it to cool and put into a freezer bag and freeze it. Or you can reduce it still further and pour it into an ice cube tray, so that you have mini stock cubes for flavoring sauces, gravies and suchlike.
5. This is not a waste of time. Do not buy ready-made stock. Certainly do not use stock cubes. It just isn't the same.
- Comment (38)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (7)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments:
Apr '11
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
I let mine cook overnight. I find longer cook time makes for a richer stock. I also throw a few peppercorns in mine.
May '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Wow. I never knew. I never had the least idea.
I will try it.
Thanks, James.
May '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
I've been thinking about how we might have to learn to butcher farm animals again, which I dread.
It would help with the obesity epidemic, though, wouldn't it?
Dec '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
I'd always prefer my own stock, but that is simply not an option all the time. However, there is a product that beats the pants off the granules or cubes: Better than Bouillon.
Dec '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
"some carrot, some celery"
I love precise measurements.
Oct '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Good stuff for the cooler weather and impending colds.
Mar '11
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
I make chicken soup every week, and it meets with very wide praise. My "recipe" is exceedingly simple: Use all poultry bones (leftovers from meals, and I get extra frozen turkey bones by the case for tens of cents per pound from my relieved butcher).
Put the bones in a pot of hot water, making the water line go over the chicken line. Vegetables and spices are not needed at all.
Simmer (very low boil) for 12-24 hours. If you blend the bones first, you can do this in 2 hours.
Then put a paper towel in a flour sifter, and pour the fluid through it to strain. I go through a number of paper towels for a large stock pot of soup. That leaves me with clear, beautiful broth that jellies perfectly when it cools.
Then I add either salt or a secret ingredient to taste - depends on your preferences.
Cool, and skim off any remaining fat (it will form on top and be very easy to peel off once the soup has gelled).
Freezes and defrosts without any damage or degradation. Perfect, wonderful soup.
Enjoy!
May '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
This is interesting. I like having a break from the political posts once in a while.
Jun '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Did I accidentally wander into a cooking chat room? This thread hasn't a single criticism of liberals, Democrats, or Obama. Let's step it up.
I will, however, pass the recipes on to my wife, an excellent maker of chicken soup.
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Thanks, James. You're helping Ricochet realize my recent dream of turning it into a cooking blog!
I've never made my own stock before, but you've sold me on its virtues.
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
@diane - sometimes I'm truly astonished by the cultural divide between Britain and the US - and I guess this business of stock-making is one of them. Then again, maybe not. I've just racked my brain as to which of my friends bothers to make stock and the number is vanishingly small. It's another of those lost arts - like darning socks - which we shall all rediscover in the coming Dark Times.
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Oh and @Katievs - I would love to hear how you get on. For me, a good stock is the essential basis of good cooking. It makes soups a zillion times better; plus, of course, it's gives you a great risotto. Remember DON'T LET IT COME TO THE BOIL - that way Emulsification Hell lies.
Jun '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
What the hell's going on? We're taking cooking lessons from a Brit. The only reason the Brits conquered the world is because they were looking for a good restaurant. One that didn't serve boiled beef.
Jun '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
I rest my case. Mention good and it's followed by risotto. Move the conversation to boiling, and the Brit pops in with an ALL CAPS WARNING. If anyone knows anything about boiling it would be a Brit.
Edited on October 4, 2011 at 6:44pmMay '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
With respect, I think you are making too big a deal about cloudy stock, and you may scare folks off. Unless you are using it to make chicken soup, it doesn't really matter if it's cloudy. In most other soups (i.e., those with other ingredients that will make it opaque anyway), stews, sauces, etc., you'll never notice. By all means, try not to boil it, but if you mess up and it's cloudy, you shouldn't worry about it (and you haven't "failed"). It's still ten times better than anything you'll buy in the store.
May '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Oh, and I get 3 or 4 quarts of stock out of my turkey carcass at Thanksgiving, which I freeze in 1 or 2 cup containers and use all winter for stews, braises and sauces.
Oct '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
And yet the British have a wonderful culinary tradition. Somewhere, somehow and suddenly that tradition was lost. There is an attempt to recover it, but once a generation comes to adulthood without knowing how to shop or how to cook, the chain is broken, the tradition dies - and society is impoverished. Try to find a tomato that tastes bad in France and you'll have a hard time: enough people know how to buy tomatoes that there's no point in producing or stocking bad ones. Try to find a tomato that tastes of anything in England and you'll have a hard time; they look great - or, at least, they look like Hollywood's version of tomatoes - but that's all.
And that's how we get back to the conservative political message - continuity of tradition is important and brittle and under attack. First they came for the fresh vegetables...
Mar '11
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
My soup comes out clear - and I do NOT obsess about not boiling - a low boil works without making the soup cloudy. The straining through paper towel (much cheaper and easier than cheese cloth) also removes a lot of junk.
The point is, this is easy to do well. The hardest part is straining it at the end - and that is pretty trivial.
May '10
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
James Delingpole:
1. Take all the bones from a roast chicken dinner (including the various wing/leg/thigh bones from your family's/guests' plates: don't be squeamish, it's not going to kill you) and roast them in the oven (I know you have a different word for "roast" in the US: "broil" is it? Something weird like that) until they are light to medium brown. (If you don't do this, the stock is more likely to emulsify: not good)
We still say roast in the US. Broiling is a different process which places the heat source above the food, often in a separate compartment underneath the main oven.
Apr '11
Re: A Useful Thing I Learned About Chicken Stock
Does it work to strain through a coffee filter rather than a paper towel? Seems like a filter would be a little sturdier, but then maybe the process would go too slowly.