Homemade Chicken Stock

Sunday nights are a good time to do food that you normally wouldn't dream of having time to do normally.

Slow cooking, roasts and soups are some things that come to mind. Today Ian and I were staying in to watch the Patriots vs. Ravens and I pulled out ingredients from our chest freezer to make some good ol' fashioned chicken stock.

I like to keep a big glass capped jar in the chest freezer and collect odds and ends from daily cooking adventures. Onion skins, garlic ends, wilted celery, old carrots, etc. All this goes into the freezer jar to save for whenever I feel like making stock. Same thing happens with chicken bones from past roasts.

Also, ever roast a chicken yourself? Ever pull out that weird looking bag they shove back inside the bird? That's goood flavor right there. Most people throw out the gizzards, heart and liver because Americans are clueless with how to use these. Just throw them into a bag and freeze them for later. I had a chicken carcass and a baggie of zombie food (what I call that bag of chicken stuff) that I threw into a big pot.

Looks pretty dull right? 

If your food looks dull, it will taste worse

At this point I raided my fridge and pantry. I had a some slightly dry red onion and yellow onion that weren't quite crispy enough for cooking with anymore, but still had plenty of flavor. We just bought 10 pounds of carrots (oh Costco, how you steal my money so sneakily...) so I picked through them to find the skinniest carrots that would normally be annoying to eat and scrubbed them to toss into the pot.

Some other odds and ends include old celery plus leaves (fresh celery is great in chicken soup), some red chard leaves (little extra flavor and color from the red stalks), parsley and some burdock root that Ian bought a couple weeks ago that we can't find more uses for (we'll see how that goes...). Once all items are in the pot, fill till the chicken pieces are covered. I estimated this amount... not going to lie to you.

Much prettier now, right??

Always remember one thing when cooking...

  The more colorful your food

the healthier your diet 

We're not talking Fruit Loops here, folks. We're talking beta-carotene, lycopene, chlorophyll, anthoxanthin, anthocyanin and carotenoids. Did I just speak gibberish to you? Get friendly with those terms and find out why these pigments in veggies and fruits can help protect your health a hundred times over.

Spice Time!!

I like to take some tips from mi madre when it comes to  spicing chicken stock. That woman can make one hell of a chicken soup based off her stock. She does not cut corners with the spices. She prefers creating a sachet of herbs and spices that sits in the water like a big tea ball. For reasons of laziness, I have not gotten around to buying cheesecloth to make a sachet, nor have I gone high tech and bought a massive tea ball (like this one).  I just throw shit into the pot like the uncivilized chef that I am.

Spices I threw in:

8 peppercorns (whole)

1 tsp cumin seeds (trying them out)

2tsp ground cumin (because I can't help myself)

1 whole cinnamon stick (trust me)

4 cloves (this could be very good or super questionable)

There was also a bunch of parsley, rosemary and thyme shoved into 

the roast chicken I used previously that ended up in this stock as well.

Start cooking the brew.

I was taught to heat the water until you see a couple bubbles here and there. A very slow simmer. Of course, I'm too ADD for that so I end up putting the sucker on high until I see a bubble and say "good" until the entire things starts boiling and I say "AHH". This gets repeated until I figure out the right heat level.

Refrain from doing this, your stock will taste better if you have patience. I'm still working on this.

All that vegetable color cooks out and into the water

  I have found that if you use raw chicken, you will get what looks like scum floating on the top. Scoop off that scum as you see it appear, it doesn't taste good and will make your final broth taste worse. When I use roasted chicken, less scum seems to appear, most likely because you have less juices to work with. For starters, the best way to make stock is to use a fresh, raw chicken. However, I like to be frugal and squeeze out some more flavor from my roasted chicken bones.

After your stock has been simmering for hhoouuurrsss (and you've had a drink, and made some snacks for watching football), check back on the soup. I determine my stock to be good and cooked when I can spoon through the mix and come up with bones that look like they could be used to make a creepy wind chime for a serial killer. When meat completely falls away from the bone like that, it means the heat has worked through the meat and cooked it slowly until it falls off the bone. Perfecto.

Ian helped me pour the stock into a second pot with a big colander in between. The colander catches all the bits and pieces. Forget any vegetables you're thinking of picking out, their flavor has been all used up for the broth. Cool down this broth FAST. For all you scientists out there, you know why. For those of you that aren't, here's why. Broth is THE perfect media for bacteria to have a frat-basement style party in. If you haven't been to a frat basement...it's bad, just trust me. 

Knock down the temperature of the stock fast to keep bacterial growth to a minimum by sticking the pot in a bath of ice water, or do what I did and stick the whole pot outside because it's cold and windy. Once the broth has cooled, stick the whole pot into the fridge and wait for it to gel up. Yes, gel. The cartilage cooked out of the bones makes the stock a bit jelly-like. This is when you can scoop up the top fat layer that rises.

This is the end of Sunday chicken stock cooking! 

Next step is to relax, yell at the TV as the Ravens lose by an superbly terrible field goal attempt, 

and wait for the 49ers/Giants game. 

Verdict:
 

The cloves were a very interesting add on. They have such a strong flavor and smell that sometimes it can ruin a dish, but I think it helps pep up the stock. Because the majority of the chicken I was using for this was previously cooked, I got less broken down cartilage in the stock than if I had used an entire raw chicken. I'll have to give that a shot next. All the vegetables helped give the final stock a really gorgeous, deep yellow color that makes it much more appetizing that store bought stock.
The stock made enough to fill 3 quart size containers that I popped into the freezer and one pyrex dish that is about 8oz. It's good to separate out the stock so that you can take out a little bit at a time as you cook future meals. I like to use this stock for making rice, quinoa, soup, stews, you name it.