Make Your Own Chicken Stock

stock

The French call a good stock the fond de cuisine or the foundation of cooking. In the kitchen as in architecture you want the best foundation you can get. Homemade chicken stock has a fuller body and is more flavorful than the kind from a can or box. You also know exactly what’s in it and don’t have to contend with the high sodium often found in grocery store stock. Making your own is also a great way to cut back on food waste in your kitchen and save yourself some money.

If you’ve bought, roasted and eaten a chicken and you’re about to throw out the carcass, stop! If you don’t have time to make stock right now, put the chicken bones with any meat clinging to them; the skin; the chicken neck and giblets if you have them (exclude the heart or liver which are too strong for stock); and any other scraps in a freezer worthy container. It’s important to use fresh ingredients in stock so try to schedule your stock making day within a month or so.

Stock also calls for some vegetables to add complexity. This is a great place to use some green bits that you might otherwise throw out: the dark green parts of leeks, the green tops of carrots, the leaves from celery, the stems of parsley and other fresh herbs whose leaves you have stripped. All of these items can be saved in a zip top bag in the freezer and pulled out on stock making day.

I give a recipe below, but really you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand. The onions (with their skins) give a nice golden color to the stock and celery lends a bright fresh flavor, but other than than, be creative. The only things to stay away from are strong vegetables like cabbage or anything in the cruciferous family (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.), they will overpower the stock and can sometimes turn bitter. If you use red onions the stock will turn very dark. It’s quite traditional to use a bay leaf and some peppercorns. I also discovered some old recipes that call for cloves. Using whole fresh herbs and spices is best instead of ground or dried.

You’ll notice there is no salt in this recipe. It’s best to wait and add salt to the dish you are preparing with the stock. If you put salt in now and then use this stock in a recipe that calls for you to reduce it greatly (like a sauce or gravy) any salt would become overly concentrated making the dish too salty.

Ingredients

Makes about 4 quarts (before reduction)

2 chicken carcasses with necks and giblets if you have them
(don’t use the heart or liver as they are too strong)
2 carrots peeled and split lengthwise
2 leeks (including the dark green part) split lengthwise and cleaned well
6 stalks of parsley or thyme or the green tops from your carrots
2 onions with the skin on, chopped in half
3 stalks of celery with leaves
1 head of garlic with the skin on, chopped in half
5 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
3 whole cloves
water

Put the dry ingredients into a 10-12 quart pot. If you have one, a stock pot is best as the shape limits evaporation during cooking.

Add enough water to cover the ingredients by about 2 inches.

Bring it to a boil watching carefully. As soon as it boils, turn it down to a bare simmer with only a couple of bubbles breaking through. Partially cover the pot.

During the first half hour frequently skim the brownish scum that rises to the the top using a large metal spoon or a skimmer. After this you may see white foam, this can be left in the pot.

Continue simmering with the pot partially covered for 2-3 hours. Taste the stock about every half hour. You’ll know it’s done when the flavor hasn’t increased from the last time you tasted. At first it will taste mostly of vegetables, but eventually the chicken flavor grows. Remember, there is no salt in there so it won’t taste like chicken soup. As it cooks the collagen from the bones will also give it more body. You may need to adjust the heat to maintain a simmer as the stock evaporates. Expect to lose about 1/3 of the liquid in the process.

When it is finished, strain the stock through a fine mesh strainer or line a colander with cheese cloth, coffee filters or paper towels. Leave the stock uncovered on the counter until the container is cool to the touch, then cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

The next step is to reduce the stock so it takes up less room in your freezer. Peel or scrape off the fat that has risen to the top and congealed. Pour the remaining stock into a saucepan and boil it uncovered until it is reduced by half. Allow it to cool uncovered and pour it into freezer bags in 1 or 2 cup increments or pour it into ice cube trays. If using ice cube trays, once it is frozen, pop the cubes out and put them in zip top bags in the freezer.

Remember, this stock is quite concentrated so you only need half the amount a recipe calls for, plus the same amount of water to reconstitute it.

By Kathryn McGowan on May 21, 2009 | 1